


warm as the sun (but safer)

by petasos



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Canon Divergence - The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus), Canon Divergence - The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus), Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Cussing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Language, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Minor Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Minor Internalized Homophobia, Minor Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Trans Male Character, canon is mine now and i do with it what i want, it's michael jsyk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 09:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25847068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petasos/pseuds/petasos
Summary: “What do you think? I fell out of the sky! Sorry for getting smoke all over your beach, it’s sorta hard to control where you land when the helicopter you made in less than a minute in mid-air decides to malfunction, but, like, you know, that’s life!”The boy pulls back slightly, but his arrow’s still trained right at Leo, his eyes dropping to Leo’s chest, the tattered orange shirt. “Fucking fantastic. You’re a demigod. I guess they let anyone go on quests these days, huh?”Leo Valdez lands on an island, meets an asshole, finds his way off that island, and falls in love - in roughly that order.
Relationships: Jason Grace & Piper McLean & Leo Valdez, Leo Valdez/Michael Yew
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to thank liz (nerdylizj on tumblr and ao3!) for betaing the first chapter... i'm sorry you choked on your own spit because of me. i love you so much, but you already knew that. i'd also like to thank everyone in the 21+ pjo server (the party ponies) for listening to me vent about writing this and enjoying the snippets i sent. you guys have made the past few weeks really good for me... i love you all so much.
> 
> so, 2-ish weeks back, i was joking around in the 21+ pjo server with some friends about michael yew's death, and i made a joke about michael being calypso 2. i joked i'd write a 60k slowburn... and that became this. needless to say, this is not that 60k slowburn. it's currently at 31k and nowhere near the end goal.
> 
> now: a couple very important things going into this. hazel is 16 and not 13 in this fic, and the coming-out scene with nico doesn't happen because i said so. heed the tags. yes, some parts of this fic are directly rewritten parts of the original novels but a lot is original content. some events are rearranged in this fic as well (an example being that mellie and coach hedge got married in between TLH and SoN canonically, in here they're not married yet.)
> 
> last note! this is tagged as "enemies to friends to lovers" but it's more like "one-sided enemyship/rivals to begrudging roommates to friends who bicker to pining but still bickering to lovers who still bicker."

Dying, as it turns out, is nothing like what Leo had expected. He’s not even sure if he _is_ dying, not at first; he goes hurtling through the air, clutching at the Archimedes sphere, a cloud of sleet courtesy of Miss Priss lifting him off of his feet and tossing him up and into the sky like he weighs nothing at all.

He wonders if he’ll crash and land somewhere, if he’ll hit the sea, if he’ll die right on impact. Probably; nothing’s ever easy. He’s got a feeling that dying such an embarrassing death won’t earn him a spot in Elysium, and if he has to spend an eternity standing around in fields of grain packed tighter than a football stadium during a home game - well, he’d rather _not_.

But things really are never that simple.

He’s not sure how high up he went, but Leo’s pretty sure he probably lost consciousness at some point. His ears feel like they’re bleeding from how loud the wind is, roaring in his ears, rushing over his skin (he’s fucking _freezing_ ). He’s not sure how far he’s going to fall, but he can see the ocean sprawled out beneath him, his eyes slamming shut as he tries to think of _something, anything_ , some way out of this mess so he doesn’t die ‘cause the stupid goddess of fucking _snow_ sent him crashing into the ocean.

‘Leonardo Valdez, may he rest in peace, died falling into the ocean’ does _not_ sound like a good tombstone, thank you very much. Not that they’d be able to bury him (there’s no grave if there’s no body to bury, right? At least he thinks that’s how it works. He’s never died before.)

He’s still clutching at the Archimedes sphere, _thank the gods_ , he’s not sure what he’d do if he dropped it; but the ocean’s closing in, so vividly bright blue that it conjures up thoughts of Hawaii and beaches and sipping a virgin daiquiri (he’s got no idea what that would taste like, though) in his swimsuit and tinkering up something to keep his hands busy.

If there’s some sort of personalized afterlife…

No.

 _No way in hell am I going to die here_ , he thinks, and one hand scrambles for his toolbelt, managing to yank some duct tape out, pushing himself backwards to strap the sphere to his chest. It makes him look stupid - a low-budget Iron Man cosplayer hurtling through the sky and trying to figure something out, make something work, grabbing at the pockets on his belt.

Tools go flying through the air, dropping down into the sea faster than he is.

Leo wonders what it would feel like to hit the ocean. He wonders what drowning is going to feel like _if he doesn’t move fast enough to save himself_.

They need him. Jason, Piper - the others, they need him. _Or maybe they don’t. You’re just the seventh wheel, the person out of place when everyone else has their own - maybe the world would be better off without you._

He thinks he has about thirty seconds, maybe a full minute at max, before he hits the water. Probably not much longer than that. He doesn’t have any _time_ to make this work, he doesn’t have time to figure something out, he’s going to die and in the end does it even matter?

It’s not like they can use his help, anyways.

Leo Valdez is going to die from drowning, and if that isn’t ironic, he doesn’t know what is. There’s nothing below, it’s just water, stretches and stretches and miles and miles of aqua, the waves rolling over each other so loudly it’s making him want to plug up his ears. He can’t focus like this. His hands work, grabbing at bolts and nuts and screws and whatever he can - there’s a cord dangling on his foot and it goes flying when he’s pushed forward, hurtling face-down towards the ocean, and maybe it’d be best to just give up, pray that he doesn’t die on impact, pray some god takes pity on him and lets him live.

Maybe Jason will come save him, and Leo can play at being Lois Lane.

He doubts he’d make a very good reporter.

But there’s no Jason, there’s just him and his hands and his thoughts, as hard as it is to think like this. His movements are frenzied, constructing and working as quickly as he can.

Maybe dear old dad’s looking fondly on him, maybe he’s really fucking good at working under pressure, or maybe Leo’s just lucky, but there’s a frame in his hands and maybe it’s shit but it’s good enough, it’ll make do. He can fix all the glaring flaws as soon as he’s safe, as soon as he’s back on the ship, ‘cause there’s no way he’s _not_ going to re-make this crap and see what he could’ve done better (for next time, keep moving, _keep looking forward_ -)

He grabs at his chest, turning the dial on the sphere. It whirls into action, bronze wires shooting out and spiralling around the frame as he quickly assembles an engine _and gods he doesn’t have time for this he’s going to hit the ocean and become a Leo-shaped pancake_.

He’s falling, and he’s falling, and he’s going to hit the ocean but then he’s not.

Gods, his mom would be so proud of him - he finishes the halter he’s making, attaches it to himself and slaps a hand over the sphere’s override switch.

The engine makes a hacking noise in response, and _fuck_ he’s going to die here, he’s going to die with not a single speck of land in sight - 

The sphere burns against his chest, probably sears right through his shirt with how hot it is. The blades turn, whirring behind him, and Leo _screams_ until his throat feels hoarse.

He probably looks like an idiot, with tools and supplies dropping out of his belt. If there’s a poster child for what you want your demigod kid to look like, it’s definitely not him. They’d slap a picture of Leo Valdez right under the ‘Do Not’ section in the Camp Half-Blood handbook, write something spiffy and snarky as the caption.

‘ _And here we see Leo Valdez (15, almost 16, son of Hephaestus) hurtling to his death and hurriedly assembling a really shitty helicopter system in an attempt to not go ker-splat against the ocean._ ’

The blades shudder, and he can feel it against his back, wonders how quickly it would take for them to crash or hurt him, but he can’t care because there’s _land_ , he can see expanses of sand, colors that aren’t blue, and Leo shoots forward, hoarsely begging his newest baby to stay alive, stay good for just a few seconds longer, just let him have this.

He slices through the air like it’s butter, like it’s less than that, and the sphere goes hotter and hotter against his chest. It’d leave a burn if he wasn’t immune.

And then his makeshift helicopter explodes.

Parts break off like meteorites, flinging away from him as he goes hurtling right for the sand dunes. He closes his eyes, embracing for impact, grabbing at the air. There’s nothing to grab at. Not that it really matters, because he drops right into unconsciousness.

  


* * *

  


The first thing he’s aware of is the smell of smoke, rancid in his nostrils, and Leo’s eyes snap open, hands grabbing at fistfuls of sand. The grains rush through his fingers. The beach is covered in bits and pieces of his stupid, shitty helicopter, and his hands fly to the sphere, making sure it’s still there and intact.

It’s not. There’s just the tape, though it’s basically disintegrated… and also on fire. He bats at a few sparks. His clothes are covered in sand and stained charcoal from the flames, and he’s got a feeling his shirt’s completely ruined.

 _Fuck_ , what’s he supposed to do now?

Leo looks around, trying to figure out where he is - aside from the small crater he’s currently sitting in, there’s not that much out here.

Just sand. Sand so pale it’s almost white, waves frothing against the shore. He staggers to his feet, pulling himself out of the crater. He slips a few times, lands right on his ass, but he manages to pull himself out, scrambling up and out and standing with a hand over his eyes as he looks out towards the horizon.

There’s no signs of life, no signs of the _Argo II_.

“Great,” he mumbles, solely to himself, and turns away from the glow of the sun. There aren’t any tourists, no beach towels or bottle caps peppering the sand, no picnic baskets or barbeques. 

No hotels or resorts, either.

Maybe it’s one of those smaller islands, privately owned, sitting out in the Mediterranean unused.

Maybe not. He’s not even sure if he’s _in_ the Mediterranean anymore. For all he knows, Snow Princess back there sent him flying out to the Pacific somehow. He’s got no clue how far up he went.

There’s just white sand spread beneath his feet. His shoes are somehow intact, caked with sand. He turns towards the column of smoke, scrambling over himself to get over there, see the damage and find that damned sphere.

He hears the whirring of the blades before he gets there. It’s like his poor creation’s coughing, spitting out smoke as the blades attempt to turn, getting slower and slower. It’s not as shitty as he’d expected, given that it’s still managing to _try_ and keep going… he’s actually pretty proud.

Leo grins at that, moving forward. He can taste smoke and salty air, which does nothing to help his parched throat. Either way, he skids down, landing in the crater and searching through the rubble for the sphere, for anything re-usable.

_There it is, come to papa!_

It’s still emitting steam even as he retrieves it, clicking at him like it’s pissed. He snatches it up, checks it over for any injuries, but it’s completely intact. He moves out of the wreckage, collapsing on the beach and cradling the Archimedes sphere in his hands.

It’s searing hot, so hot that Leo almost drops it.

But it’s good. It’s safe. _He’s_ safe, for now. He just has to figure out some way to get back to his friends or wait for them to find him - maybe he could build a signal flare, draw up an SOS sign on the beach.

The waves crash against the beach, foam sticking to the sand. Leo’s half-tempted to run over there and douse himself, get some of this gritty shit off his clothes, but there’s not that much in the way of fabric to begin with, and he’d just end up with wet clothes (and he’s not Percy, water isn’t his habitat.)

But the sun is warm on his skin, and Leo closes his eyes for a moment, allowing himself a few seconds of rest as he sits on the shore, waves lapping just a few inches from his sand-covered knees.

Then the moment passes.

“Alright-y, let’s get to work,” he says, and he’s just talking to himself, rolling his shoulders back as he gets to his feet and clutches tightly at the sphere. There’s got to be _something_ he can do… unless the others show up, but even then… he’s probably fresh out of luck there, used all _that_ up on the fall down.

Something cracks behind him. A twig, maybe.

He whips around and drops the sphere.

There’s an arrow pointed right at him, and Leo’s eyes strain trying to look down the shaft and towards the person behind it.

He stumbles backwards, holding up his hands in surrender, right before his ass hits the sand again. “Look, I had no idea this place was inhabited, I - uh, I come in peace! My name’s -”

He’s still got an arrow pointed right at him, notched and clearly ready to fire. There’s a boy behind it, wearing drapes of white fabric that fall to his knees, tied around the waist with a rope belt, the color contrasting his brown skin. His hair’s dark, cut choppily around his chin and tucked behind his ears. The bow looks like it takes up over half his height.

Leo’s second thought is that he looks vaguely like a ferret, his features all scrunched up. His first thought is _there’s an arrow pointed right at me_ , but that’s a given.

He also looks _pissed_.

Leo decides he _really_ doesn’t like this kid almost immediately, but that’s probably from the arrow.

“How the _fuck_ did you get here?” growls the boy. It’s an actual proper growl, like something an animal would let out. “What in Hades’ name is that smoke? What the hell did you do?”

“What do you think? I fell out of the sky! Sorry for getting smoke all over your beach, it’s sorta _hard_ to control where you land when the helicopter you made in less than a minute _in mid-air_ decides to malfunction, but, like, you know, _that’s life_!”

The boy pulls back slightly, but his arrow’s still trained _right_ at Leo, his eyes dropping to Leo’s chest, the tattered orange shirt. “ _Fucking fantastic_. You’re a demigod. I guess they let anyone go on quests these days, huh?”

“Sure do,” Leo replies. His jaw feels tight.

This guy keeps squinting at him from behind his bow, like he’s planning on shooting him right in the chest and killing him here and now. Leo’s _expecting_ him to do just that, especially when he draws his shoulder back just-so… but then the second passes, flickers out, and nothing happens.

“ _Really_?” A snort, and this guy’s scowling down at him. “I guess the gods have a sense of humor.”

“Yeah, they _definitely_ do, so why don’t you take that arrow you’re pointin’ at me and shove it right up your -”

The arrow hits him square in the shoulder. Leo curses, pain shooting through him as he falls against the sand, fingers grabbing at the shaft - should he pull it out? Is that even safe to do? His vision blurs slightly, hissing as he goes to grab for his hammer.

If it’s a fight this guy wants…

Arrow Guy’s already notched up another arrow, pointing it right at him. “One wrong move, and I’ll kill you here and now.”

Leo realizes he’s serious, but that doesn’t stop him from pushing himself up onto his elbows, glaring at him. “Did you not hear me when I said I didn’t know this place was inhabited? I’m gonna get off here, I was _about_ to -”

“Shut _up_ ,” says Arrow Guy.

“Look, my name’s Leo Valdez, I’m a son of -”

“I don’t care. _Don’t move._ ”

“I kind of _can’t_ ,” Leo mutters, and the guy glares right back at him.

There’s a nasty twist to his mouth. Leo really doesn’t like that. He really doesn’t like anything about this guy, and he thinks he could _probably_ take him out… but moving his shoulder even slightly sends a spike of pain rushing through him, and Leo’s head lands back on the sand, fists clenching.

He’s exhausted, this idiot shot him in the shoulder, and he’s got a feeling he’d pass right out if not for pure spite. Hell, Leo almost _does_ pass right out, and the fact that he manages not to is pretty incredible.

His mom would _definitely_ be proud of him for that.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity of just standing there, this guy’s arrow right in his face, sand digging into his back and heat bearing down on him from the sun… the guy moves forwards, undoing Leo’s toolbelt.

“Hey!” he protests, face flushing in annoyance.

“Magic belt?” Arrow Guy asks, holding it up and looking disdainfully at it. He’s still managing to hold his bow, which surprises Leo for a brief second. Arrow Guy’s gaze falls back on him, staring him down. “Hephaestus, then.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Leo mutters under his breath, and he can tell this guy can hear him because his face pinches together even worse. “Are you gonna kill me, or let me up?” A beat. All he can hear is the waves crashing, the wind rustling the trees in the distance. “What _are_ you, anyways?”

“What do you think?” hisses the guy in response, draping Leo’s toolbelt over his shoulder.

“A monster? A god?”

The guy waves his bow at him, still scowling. “ _A demigod_ , you idiot.”

“How the - how’d you get here?” Leo asks, and… well, nothing about this makes sense anyways. He crashed on an island, some demigod _shot him_ … “What the fuck, dude? Why aren’t you at camp? _Where are we_?”

“Gods, _you ask a lot of questions_.” He snorts. “Guess this is what I get, huh?”

“I -” Leo actually manages to properly sit up, wincing as the arrow digs further into his shoulder. He almost lets out a whine from the pain, his vision going blurry at the edges for a second, but he pushes through it. It’s nothing some ambrosia and nectar won’t fix, right? “What does _that_ mean?”

Wow, his voice is coming out hoarser than expected.

Arrow Guy glares down at him. “Whatever. Get up.”

This time, Leo happily listens. He gets to his feet. It takes a second for it to register, but he realizes he’s actually taller than this kid, probably by about a foot give or take an inch or two. It’s sort of funny, makes Leo briefly feel a little better about this whole situation.

The guy’s on his tiptoes within a second, his face right in Leo’s. “If you make _one wrong move_ -”

“What, you’ll kick me? Can you even reach -”

He pulls back, face sour, and Leo’s struck with the overwhelming desire to punch this guy’s lights out and put him in his place. And hell, he probably could.

“No. I’ll shoot you, right in the chest.” Maybe two seconds pass. “Come with me.”

 _Jeez_ , Leo thinks. _That’s quite the whiplash - hot and cold much_?

“And why should I do that?”

“I shot you. If you don’t want to bleed out on the beach, you’ll come with me.” He’s already moving away and towards a path leading up to the hills, up to the trees. He throws a look over his shoulder like he’s tossing out the garbage. “Or are you as stupid as you look?”

With a sigh, Leo grabs the sphere off the ground, groaning when he has to reach down, and follows him.

“Good choice,” says the guy.

“I don’t even know your _name_ ,” says Leo, and tries _very hard_ to ignore the pang in his shoulder when he moves, the arrow jutting out. He wants to rip it out, but that’d probably be a really stupid idea.

Arrow Guy snorts.

Leo _almost_ misses what he says when he sees the garden - and it’s probably the most beautiful thing he’s seen all day. He can smell ripe fruit on the trees, an orchard filled with peach and apple and pear trees (and probably other fruits he doesn’t know the names of), well-organized beds of fruits and vegetables arranged like clockwork around four fountains covered with bronze statues of satyrs that remind him way too much of Coach Hedge, trellises covered in vibrant flowers.

There’s even a cave at the end of the path, rock carved into pristinely even columns, sheer curtains draping down and blowing gently in the breeze. And beyond that, the grass slopes down into rocky shores, bright blue water lapping at the stones. He’s got a feeling Annabeth would love that, love the fountain, love the vineyard… everything.

He moves forward, disturbing a dragonfly hovering over the petals, running one between his fingers. It feels like velvet, smells like lavender. It’s almost enough to take the pain away, just that little distraction.

But Leo hears him speak anyways.

“Michael Yew.”

  


* * *

  


Michael Yew (who’s name sounds ridiculously familiar) sits him down on an open-backed chair inside the cave. Leo keeps his eyes anywhere but Michael’s face, staring up at the ceiling. It looks exactly like one of those geodes you buy at a souvenir store, the kind that you want to poke at - glittering green and white and purple, crystals hanging above them.

Leo stares blankly at the harp in one corner - it looks like someone trashed it. Hell, the entire place looks vaguely like Coach Hedge’s room aboard the _Argo II_ , half-messy and used. Michael’s fingers wrap around the arrow’s shaft and yank it clean out. Leo almost bites his tongue in surprise and pain, but then there’s a flask of nectar shoved into his hands.

“Drink,” says Michael.

Leo obeys _that_ command, taking a few hungry gulps of it. He can practically feel it wash through him, warmth pouring through his entire body and pooling in his chest and stomach. He knows he shouldn’t drink too much - but gods does it taste good and make him feel so much better.

Michael moves away, and Leo briefly wonders if he should make a run for it, but when he turns his head to watch… he’s just moving towards a mirror, adjusting the belt on his chiton (at least, he thinks it’s a chiton?) and the strap of his quiver.

“Where are we?” Leo finally asks, after several moments of annoying silence.

“How’d you get here?” Michael counters.

“I _told_ you, I fell -”

Michael frowns at him, that stupid sneer that Leo has half a mind to smack right off his stupid face. “Where were you before this?”

“Like you said, I was on a quest. Can I have my toolbelt back? I need to get off this island.”

“There’s no way off this island,” Michael replies, and his tone is so bitter that it makes the aftertaste of nectar in Leo’s mouth feel like it’s not sweet at all. His eyes are narrowed, blaring right into Leo’s. His lips practically make a slit with how tightly pulled together they are.

“There’s always somethin’. Every problem has a fix.”

“Classic Hephaestus kid,” Michael grumbles.

“Did you know other -”

Michael cuts him off with a hand raised. “I was once, _gods know how long ago_ , a camper at Camp Half-Blood. _Yes_ , I knew other Hephaestus kids.”

“How long have you -”

“ _A long fucking time_. Do you have to ask all these stupid questions?”

“Yeah, I do,” Leo hisses through his teeth. He really wants to move his hands, find something to do with his fingers, _something_. But he doesn’t have his toolbelt. “I want to get off this island. I get it, you don’t like me - the feeling’s mutual! I don’t want to be here either! But I’m not just going to sit here and do nothing, I want to know everything you know so I can get off this stupid place.”

“ _Great_ ,” says Michael, rolling his eyes. “Good fucking luck trying.”

“Are you going to tell me anything?”

“Whatever,” he replies, which doesn’t really tell Leo anything and just makes him want to strangle this stupid kid. It’s not like it would be hard. “You want to know how I got here? You want to know everything I know?” 

“Yes!”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here,” Michael replies, and the tinge of bitterness to his voice worsens. “Aside from the invisible spirits -”

“The… _what_?” Leo glances around, but there aren’t any other signs of life.

“Yeah, great idea, looking around for something that’s _invisible_.”

Leo grits his teeth together. “Hey -”

“Stop cutting me off and I’ll _actually_ tell you something,” Michael replies, and Leo’s hands grip at the sides of his seat. He watches Michael move towards the fireplace (and how hadn’t he noticed the fire until just now?), picking up a pot that’s sitting on the cavern floor and using a stick to push it into the fire. He rises back up (not that it makes him much taller) and turns back towards Leo, illuminated from behind by the flames.

He can already smell whatever’s in that pot - vegetables, maybe? Soup? Whatever it is, it makes Leo’s stomach grumble dejectedly.

“There’s invisible spirits here, they clean and do shit around here. At least, I guess that’s what they are.” He still sounds so sour that it makes Leo feel weird, makes him want to shove a lemon in Michael’s mouth. “I was in a battle with the rest of Cabin Seven, I was knocked out, and I woke up here. Alone. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, if it’s been days or months or years - time’s weird here. I don’t know where I am, and there’s no way off here. The gods won’t answer me. Not even dear ol’ dad will. That all the information you want?”

 _Days or months or years_ … how long has this guy been alone here? Is Leo the first person who’s showed up here since Michael arrived? That’s pretty harsh.

“Yeah,” Leo replies, staring at the pot in the fireplace.

“Great. Now get out of here, and go… do whatever the hell it is you’re planning to do.”

“I’ll need my toolbelt for that,” Leo replies, mouth twisting.

Michael grabs the toolbelt off his shoulder and moves towards him, practically throwing it at his feet. It actually hits one of Leo’s feet with a thud, some sand coming off with it. “There.”

Leo rises to his feet and moves towards the exit of the cave, ignoring how his stomach grumbles. Right as he reaches the mouth, he pauses and looks over his shoulder. “Aren’t you going to ask me what year it is, or why I’m out here?”

“I don’t care,” replies Michael, grabbing a broom from the corner like he might swat Leo with it, and that’s that.

Leo’s tempted to kick over one of the trellises when he exits the garden, fuming so hard he’s surprised there’s not smoke coming out of his ears like a cartoon. What an _asshole_.

He still remembers the archer dude from back at camp - Will. He’d given Leo the grand tour, popped him off at Cabin Nine and introduced him to Jake. Will was a son of Apollo (and this guy apparently is), but he’d looked and acted absolutely nothing like Michael. Golden waves of hair, an actual smile despite the problems going on at camp…

Leo had actually _liked_ conversing with the guy, when he managed to leave Bunker Nine to get food with the others. Will, Kayla, the other Apollo kids… they were all nice people. This guy? Not so much.

 _Why is the name Michael so familiar_? He swears he knows it, but he can’t put his tongue on the why and where. Maybe one of his siblings could tell him.

God, he misses Cabin Nine. He misses his siblings back there. Jake, Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley… the dream he’d had, just before coming here, seeing Camp Half-Blood again…

Leo’s chest gives a pang, and he almost _does_ kick over the trellis that’s just sitting there, taunting him with it’s fragrant hot-pink flowers. Everything about this garden is too perfect, too out of place for the guy back in that cave.

He pushes on.

He’s going to get out of here, he decides. So what if that asshole couldn’t figure out how to get off this place? Leo’s smart. Maybe better with machines than people, but isn’t that the point right now? He needs a machine to get him off this island, some sort of raft or boat or _something_.

Leo’s first thought is to borrow this guy’s fountain and see about tossing a coin into a rainbow. He checks through his pockets and his toolbelt - no drachmas, so is there even a point in trying? It’s not like it’d go through.

“Just _fantastic_ ,” he grumbles to himself, and heads down to the beach. The sun hangs lower in the sky, burning orange like an oil spill onto the sea beyond. There’s nothing as far as the eye can see, and definitely no _Argo II._ _What if they already sailed off? What if they didn’t even look for me?_

Finding Annabeth and Percy _was_ more important, wasn’t it?

Leo grabs some supplies and gets to work building a makeshift signal flare.

He’s not sure how long it takes, but his hands are working overtime, sitting on the beach and getting sand in places there really should _not_ be sand, listening to the waves froth and foam against the shoreline. He’s not sure how long it takes, but by the time he’s done, the sun’s hanging lower, and he raises the signal over his head and fires.

A burst of red shoots into the air, exploding like a firework about a mile above him.

Leo hadn’t really _expected_ the ship to just magically appear on the horizon because he blew off a signal.

“I _was_ just testing it,” he mumbles to himself, and stores the signal gun against his hip alongside the Archimedes sphere.

His stomach grumbles in complaint again. Maybe he should pull out some hamburger buns and patties, start a fire and cook himself something? Leo wonders how rude it would be to steal some lettuce and tomatoes from Asshole McGee’s garden, but decides he doesn’t care if he’s rude.

So he hightails it back to the garden.

It takes a few minutes for him to find anything resembling lettuce or tomatoes (and he’s pretty sure one of these things is actually kale, but a good kale burger’s better than nothing.)

Everything smells like mulch. He can almost taste it, thick on his tongue, 

His knees are embedded in the dirt, fingers digging through, when something presses against the nape of his neck.

“Really?” he grumbles, and ducks forward, moving around the tip of an arrow and glaring up at Michael again. “Look -”

“Get out.”

“I’m hungry!” Leo protests.

“ _Get out._ ”

Leo holds up a tomato and a few leaves in mock surrender and rises to his feet. “Look, man, I get it -”

“We already had this conversation.” Michael points his bow right at him, and Leo scrambles backwards slightly, almost tripping over one of the beds of vegetables, his jaw clenching tight. “Do you _want_ me to shoot you? I will.”

“Jeez, dude, I don’t know how long you were here and alone, but I’m not your enemy, ‘kay? Like, I get you have it in for me -”

Michael levels the bow right at his chest.

“Fine! Fine, I’ll go!”

“ _And leave the vegetables_ ,” Michael hisses, quite snidely, and Leo drops the tomatoes and… whatever the leafy-greens he’s holding are. Now his burgers are going to be bland, unless he can find some salt or pepper or something around here… not like it _matters_ , given there’s an arrow pointed right at him.

Leo maneuvers around him, still holding his hands up. He probably looks like a mess - disheveled, clothes burnt and in tatters, and he’s probably covered in soot, but at least he feels energetic from the nectar (and a bit hyper, but when isn’t he itching to move, to do something?)

“Look, Mike, buddy,” he says.

Michael’s face darkens slightly, his pinched expression getting even more pinched-up. _Whoops_. “ _Don’t_ call me that.”

“Or what?” Leo says, tone sharper than he meant it to be. “You’ll shoot me again? Guess what! I’ll just sit here and complain -”

“Oh, yeah, like you’re not _right now_?”

“Hey, I object to that!”

“Of course you do,” Michael grumbles, and it’s so quiet Leo almost misses it. He’s still got his bow pointed right at Leo, and Leo honestly expects him to just shoot him right in the face or foot or something, but he doesn’t. He just drops that arm, pointing back behind him and towards the beach. “Scram. _Es kòrakas!_ ”

“You don’t have to tell me twice, _sunshine_ ,” Leo scoffs, and stomps back down to the beach, ignoring Michael yelling “ _don’t fucking call me that!_ ” after him.

  


* * *

  


He barely manages to get a proper fire going (the fire part’s not hard, finding wood is), but at least that’s enough to keep him warm as the sun sets, the dull glow casting shadows across the beach.

First thing come morning, Leo decides he’s going to properly check out the island, figure out some way off.

He’s already built one just fine, after all. But first he’s got to deal with making himself comfortable and hoping Michael fucking Yew doesn’t stomp down in all his glory to shoot Leo while he’s sleeping.

He watches the sea lap at the shore, eating a slightly overdone burger. It’d be better if he had spices, but he’s not too picky when he’s hungry. Maybe he’s just not thinking too hard about wanting some spices. Maybe he doesn’t care.

The ocean lolls against the shore, sand sticking to the canvas he laid out. Leo strips, uses the ocean to get some of the sand off his pants. His shirt’s toast, rest in pieces, but at least he can make the pants work.

He almost tries bathing, but he doesn’t have soap, and he’d rather not stand in the ocean in his underwear and pray to every god in the universe that _that asshole_ doesn’t have shitty timing. Leo gives up on that idea pretty quickly and just tries to shake all the sand out of his hair.

 _Call me Anakin Skywalker,_ he thinks, laying down on the tarp and staring up at the sky.

At least he had the good grace to apply sunscreen to himself, just in case. It doesn’t smell nice, like coconuts or something - just smells like sunscreen and feels oily against his skin.

The sun finally sets completely, and Leo watches stars dot the sky.

Waves crash against the beach, and Leo rests his elbows behind his head, scooting a little closer to the fire, and closes his eyes. If he’s careful, and doesn’t sleep too heavily, doesn’t have any weird dreams like the one from earlier (that evil sorceress lady telling him to jump or descend, and he hadn’t gotten it when he’d woken up, but he gets it _now_ )... then he won’t sleep through Michael trying to kill him, if that happens.

He’s not sure when he slips into unconsciousness, but it must’ve happened at some point, because when he reopens his eyes, the sun’s burning in the pastel blue sky above him. Leo hasn’t moved an inch, apparently, but the fire’s died out. It’s not even embers.

He sits up, looking around. His mouth is parched. Leo pulls a water bottle out of his toolbelt, but it’s empty, so he quickly assembles a water filter and heads down to the sea to fill it up.

It’s like a shock, stepping into the water, but he quickly gets used to it and warms up, rolling his pants up to his knees and filling up the bottle.

Leo keeps the salt. It makes his breakfast (yet another burger) taste about a hundred times better.

By noon (at least, he thinks it’s noon), Leo’s already walked the perimeter of the island - it only takes him about an hour, maybe less, and he ends up right back where he started either way. There’s no harbor, no docks, nothing. It’s just stretches of white sand, palm trees casting shadows across driftwood and shells he almost steps on. He keeps having to stop and take off his shoes, shake sand out of them.

The one thing that’s different from the rest of the island is the archery range.

That doesn’t surprise him - Michael’s a son of Apollo, and he’s clearly been keeping up practice. It’s clearly thrown together, and Leo presses his mouth into a thin line. He could do better than this in a few minutes, he thinks, moving towards it and reaching for his toolbelt.

He pauses.

“What are you doing?” calls out that snide voice.

Leo sighs, shoulders drooping as he turns. 

Michael’s standing above him, on the hills a few yards away, leaning against the trunk of a tree. 

Even from the distance, Leo can tell he’s annoyed, staring at Leo like he’s looking down the shaft of an arrow right now. He’s not. His quiver and bow are hooked onto his back, and he looks like he belongs on the cover of a brochure for some Ancient History museum between his knee-length chiton and the sandals lacing up to his ankles.

 _They’d probably have to airbrush him to make him look less ferret-y_ , Leo thinks.

“I was just _looking_ ,” Leo says defensively, planting his hand on his toolbelt.

Michael crosses his arms. “At _what_? Target practice?”

Actually, that might’ve been _‘at what, target practice?_ ’ but Leo’s not entirely sure. Is he target practice? Is _that_ target practice? Does this guy go around collecting demigods and shooting at them?

Is that a normal Apollo kid thing?

He really doesn’t remember Will Solace doing that.

“Yeah, I was looking at your target,” Leo replies, gesturing at it with his other hand. “Some of the screws aren’t tight - I was _going_ to fix it for you. You know, as thanks for giving me nectar _after you shot me_.”

Michael moves like he’s going to reach for his bow. He doesn’t. He just comes skidding down the hill and towards Leo, striding towards him with his shoulders squared.

He only comes up to Leo’s shoulders, which makes it almost hilarious because he’s leaning up on his tiptoes to get in Leo’s face.

Michael jabs a finger right against his chest. “ _Don’t_ touch my target.”

“Are you capable of saying anything that’s not ‘don’t’ or ‘no’?” Leo asks, very aware of the fact that he doesn’t actually have a shirt on (given his was completely tattered, and he left it with his tarp.) “Like, wow, maybe expand your vocabulary?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” says Michael. He smells like peaches and salt. It’s a weird mix. “Don’t touch my shit.”

“Okay, okay, _I get it_!”

“ _And put a shirt on_.”

“I don’t _have_ one,” Leo replies, frowning down at him.

Michael rolls his eyes, pulling away from him and crossing his arms. “Not my problem. I’m not running a nudist colony here, put a fucking shirt on.”

“I - _what_ , do you expect me to just conjure up a shirt from the beyond or something?”

Michael cocks a brow at him, like that’s _exactly_ what he expects of Leo. He’s very, very silent for a moment before he turns away from Leo. “Fine. I’ll go get you one.”

“What, is it distracting you?” Leo yells after him, fists clenched.

Michael glares at him from over his shoulder. “No, it’s just annoying! This is my island, I make the rules.”

“You realize this is a _beach_ , right?”

Michael grabs at his bow, but it only takes a few steps for Leo to move forward and grab him by the arm so he doesn’t aim yet another arrow at him. Michael wrenches his arm away from Leo, stumbling slightly back in the sand, giving Leo a really prickly look.

He growls at him again - like a feral dog being backed into a corner.

It reminds him a little of Jason, weirdly enough.

Leo steps backwards. “Sorry, I didn’t -”

Michael _lunges_ at him, tackling Leo right to the ground, holding an arrow in one hand like it’s a dagger. Based on the razor-sharp point, Leo has no doubts Michael could kill him with that alone. He has the upperhand, at least with that, but Leo struggles under him, grabbing at his shoulders and pushing Michael off him.

Michael stumbles and lands ass-first onto the sand, then right onto his back, almost stabbing himself with his own arrow.

_Snap!_

It doesn’t take a genius to realize what that was, and Leo’s eyes go wide. Michael’s bow lays on the sand behind him, broken almost cleanly in half.

Michael scrambles towards it, picking up the two halves only connected by string, dangling between them. His gaze locks onto Leo, rising to his feet, lips curling and eyes going cold and hard as he marches towards him, still holding the bow in his hands. It’s the only careful thing about him at the moment, the way his fingers are so gracefully curved around the smooth wood.

Fuck, Leo thinks. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

“I’m - I’m so sorry, I -” Leo staggers backwards. He almost crashes right into the target.

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Michael says, and his voice goes shrill for a moment before he stops about a foot away from Leo. His knuckles are white from how tight he’s gripping at his bow. “This took me _forever_ to make.”

“Can’t you make a new one?”

“From what? One of these palm trees?” Michael makes a sweeping gesture with one of his hands, disdainfully gesturing at the trees. “Yeah, ‘cause _that_ would be a _great_ idea! It’s just fibers! I’m not cutting down another tree in that orchard!”

Leo swallows. “I -”

Michael looks like his eyes are going to bulge right out of his sockets. “ _Don’t_ say you’re sorry again.”

“I am!”

“ _Kiss my fucking ass_ ,” Michael replies, hissing out the words through bared teeth. He’s practically _simmering_ , holding the bow in one hand as he stabs a finger up at Leo’s face, his nostrils flaring. “You’re a son of Hephaestus. _Fix this_.”

“It’s -”

“I don’t _care_. _Fix it_.” Michael lets out a weird sniffling noise as he shoves the broken bow against Leo’s chest. His eyes are slightly rimmed with red, and Leo realizes he must be holding back tears.

  


* * *

  


Leo’s worked with wood before, but not with something like a weapon. Sure, the _Argo II_ was made out of wood (and bronze), but he’s better with metal, it’s easier to just melt it and meld it with his own two hands. Gods, he misses the forge.

But he fucked up. He’s very aware of the fact that he fucked up there - sure, maybe Michael Yew didn’t have to advance on him like that in the first place, or lunged at him, but Leo shouldn’t have pushed him back… right?

Leo curses under his breath, dumping tools out of his belt and onto the tarp, biting down on his lip as he thinks. Maybe he could just super glue it back together and shrug when it breaks again... not that he’ll be anywhere near here when that happens…

“Gods, what am I _doing_?” Leo grabs at a wrench, staring at the joints for a moment. What _is_ he doing? There’s no point to fixing this stupid bow for that stupid asshole. He needs to get off this island (not that he has the supplies to), join his friends before they head to Epirus.

For all he knows, they’re already heading there right now, shrugging their own shoulders and scratching their heads at where Leo went.

He almost chucks the wrench into the ocean.

Instead, Leo grits his teeth together, an idea popping to mind before he even has a second to think too hard on it. _Damn it, Valdez, you’re a genius_ , he thinks, tossing the bow aside and pulling supplies out of his belt.

He needs to set up a proper workstation… make sure he has all the supplies needed… but he’s a son of Hephaestus, god of inventions, and more importantly, he’s the son of Esperanza Valdez.

Leo taps some morse code onto his thigh, just for her, and sets to work.

He sets to work: first by finding driftwood and then building a work table and a bench for himself. That takes up the entire evening, sawing up wood and tossing the crappier pieces aside for future usage.

It’s not his best work, he thinks, once it’s done, but it’s good enough.

It’s only a matter of pulling up what he _does_ know about bows, mentally disassembling the compound bow he saw Kayla Knowles use during Capture the Flag… sure, it’ll require upper body strength, but...

By the time he’s looked up, the sky’s growing dark. His legs feel like they’ve locked into place and he wonders how long he’s just been sitting like this, holding a blowtorch and melding PVC pipe and aluminum into shape. Everything he needs is laid out in front of him, pulled from his toolbelt.

He keeps picturing the look on Michael’s face. _Was he really about to cry over that?_

His hair’s sticking to his forehead, slick with sweat, and Leo turns off the blowtorch and pushes it out of his face, swiping his welding goggles up into his hair.

 _Well - it could be, like, way worse_ , he thinks, staring at his work-in-progress.

His stomach grumbles, reminding him that he’s still _half_ human and needs food to exist, so he moves to start up a fire.

That’s when he notices the plate and thermos, sitting on his tarp and right on top of a bundle of cloth. It’s a salad, not really his thing, but he pops the cap off the thermos and takes a whiff. Soup. Potato soup, if he had to wager a guess.

Leo picks up the bundle of cloth, letting it fall open. A cloth tee. He can’t help but grin at that, looking around to try and see if Michael’s standing in the trees and watching him eat soup and pull on a t-shirt. It’s a little on the big side, but it’ll do - Leo’s a pretty scrawny guy.

He briefly wonders why, if there are apparently shirts around here, that asshole’s wearing a proper Grecian chiton - but he also doesn’t care there.

He’d offer to show off his progress, but he doubts that ass would care… not that the guy’s even there, unless he’s camouflaged himself in the undergrowth.

Then he remembers the ‘invisible spirits’ Michael mentioned.

“Right,” he mumbles, completely to himself, and takes a swig of soup.

It’s not bad...

Could use some salt.

  


* * *

  


The next morning, Leo walks the shoreline again, gathering as much driftwood as he can find. He’s not sure how long he’s walking, his shoes getting covered in sand, the only sounds are his footsteps and the water lapping at the shore, the wind whistling through his ears.

He comes back to find another plate - apples and carrots, cooked in honey and cinnamon, and gobbles that down before building himself a lean-to so the sun won’t be blaring down on him (even with some sunscreen, Leo would rather not get a sunburn from forgetting to reapply it), moves the tarp under that and gets himself situated, getting back to work on the bow.

 _It’d be nicer if I had more metal_ , Leo thinks. It’d _also_ be nice if he had that bronze astrolabe, the one the dwarves gave him back in Bologna, the one Odysseus made. Not that it’d work, according to them, so it wasn’t even worth thinking about.

His shirt sticks to his back from sweat, and Leo wonders if trying to bathe in the ocean would actually be worthwhile. But that can wait; he’s got a bow to finish.

Leo’s not sure what time it is by the time he steps back, holding a finished compound bow in his hands. As far as he can tell, it’s working perfectly. The pulley/cam system seems right, though Leo worries at his lip for a few moments and tries to make sure it’s in working condition.

He’s not an archer, though. And he’s never made a proper bow before now. Leo didn’t even know he knew _how_ to build a compound bow from scratch before today. It’s probably not perfect, and it’ll need testing (obviously), but it should do pretty well.

“ _Hell yes_ ,” he shouts, pumping his fist.

Okay, that probably just makes him look like a dork.

Well, he thinks - now he can repair the Archimedes sphere, maybe make a compass or something. All he can really do right now is wait and _hope_ that something happens, pray that maybe the _Argo II_ appears.

Leo picks up the bow and heads up the path.

Michael’s in the orchard. Leo thinks, at first, that he’s tending to the trees - he’s perched at the top of a ladder that’s pressed against a cherry tree. Leo can only see his legs and feet from this angle, the rest of his body disappearing into the leaves. The grass grows tall, uncut and dotted with wildflowers, and Leo heads towards him, clearing his throat.

“Hey! I got your bow!”

For a second, he thinks Michael’s about to fall off the ladder, but then he comes sliding down it like he’s a firefighter or something, wiping his hands together like he’s trying to get the dust off them. He glares up at Leo, arms crossed.

“Well?”

Leo hands the bow to him like he’s presenting it. “It’s a compound bow. Might be a bit -”

Michael grabs it from him without so much as a word, studying the cables and pulleys. The corner of his mouth twitches slightly, like he’s fighting a smile, but that lasts for just a second before his mouth’s twisted back into a frown and Leo’s left wondering if he imagined it.

“You’ll probably want to test it out,” Leo adds, one hand planted on his hip. “Say ‘thank you, Leo!’”

Michael glares even harder at him. “You expect a _thank you_?”

“Well, for one, I didn’t _have_ to do this! Like, _dude_ , the _least_ you can do is thank me for this, I spent all day getting stuff together to do this.”

Michael holds the bow up to the light. Is he _still_ looking it over? Wow.

“Seriously,” Leo says, trying to keep his goggles from falling back into his face, “I wouldn’t say it’s my _best_ work, but it definitely warrants some kinda recognition, Mikey.”

Michael glares at him. That seems to be a common thing here.

Leo knits his brows together and glares right back.

“It’s usable,” Michael relents, shoulders squared like he’s preparing for a fight. Maybe he is. Maybe he’s going to take this bow and shoot Leo with it.

Leo’s eyes brighten, fingers sweeping some of his hair from his eyes. “Well -”

“I’ll have to test it out,” he adds, effectively cutting him off. “See the draw weight and make sure the stability’s alright.”

“Sure, sure, do whatever you want with it. Are we even now?”

Michael gives an affirmative noise in response, running his fingers down to the handle. Leo’s got a feeling he could start doing jumping jacks right here and now and Michael wouldn’t even notice with how he’s staring at the bow.

“If you want some alone time -” Leo jabs at the space behind his shoulder. “- I can, like, get out of here, y’know.”

Michael snorts derisively, fingers curling around the bow and weighing it in his hand a second time. After a second, he looks back up at Leo, brows pinched together. “Why the fuck are you still here?”

“You didn’t tell me to fuck off, so I figured I’d just stand around and look pretty. I mean, s’a nice garden, but you could use -”

“Holy Hera, _do you ever shut up_?”

“Nah, man, shutting really my thing. Do you ever _not_ cuss, or wave your bow at random people who fall on your island?”

“ _Fuck off_ ,” replies Michael, very loudly. His face is still all pinched up. He jabs the end of the bow at Leo’s chest and glares up at him, which is one of the funniest things Leo’s ever seen if he’s being honest. This guy who comes up to his _shoulders_ staring up at him, his eyes narrowed and his mouth curled into a scowl.

Everything about this scenario is honestly so _stupid_ that it makes Leo want to go back down to the beach and kick some driftwood around.

Leo almost laughs.

It’s clear this guy’s not cool with conversations, and honestly, Leo doesn’t give enough of a crap about him to want to try and converse. He doesn’t like this guy at all; he could’ve, like, asked if Leo was a danger or something instead of _shooting him in the shoulder._

Sure, it’s horrible that this guy’s probably been alone for a while (days or months or years), but if he wants to come talk, Michael Yew can come down and talk to Leo of his own accord.

Either way, Leo turns around and leaves.

  


* * *

  


Sleeping on the beach is hell, even with the lean-to he’s constructed; he gets sand all over his clothes, it’s cold at night, and not even the fire can keep him completely warm, but there’s no way in hell that he’s going to walk up to Michael’s cave and knock on the non-existent door like ‘hey, you interested in a roomie? My skills include starting fires with my hands like I’m the damn Ghost Rider (which I’d, like, rather _not_ be doing), cooking tacos and burgers, and also building things. Oh, _and_ there’s a _bonus_! I’m also funny and super sexy, not that you’d care about the latter.’

By the second morning - or is the third? He’s not sure how many days he’s been here, and what Michael says comes right back to the forefront of his brain - _time’s weird here_. Yeah, he thinks, it really is.

Anyways, by the second (or third, or is it the fourth?) morning, Leo’s pretty close to giving up on the others arriving. There’s no way they’re going to find him here.

He cooks himself breakfast and spends gods knows how long working on fixing up the Archimedes sphere, cleaning it and fixing up the wires and circuits and making sure it’s in working condition.

He’s covered in sweat and soot and sand, which for the most part makes him feel like he’s back at Bunker Nine (minus the sand and the sun bearing down on him and the seagulls spiralling like vultures overhead, of course.)

When Leo’s not working, he’s walking the shore just in case.

It’s pretty early still, the sun still hanging lower in the sky than it is in the middle of the day, baby-blue and dusted with pale clouds. Leo fiddles with some screws and tries to make himself a compass while he walks, kicking over some driftwood and wandering through the grass poking up through the sand as it swishes against his bare legs.

That’s when he spots Michael, of _course_. Leo stills, watching him - he’s standing several feet from his target, grabbing at his quiver and pulling his arrow taut. Michael lets go, and the arrow shoots through the air.

It’s a perfect bullseye. Hell, it goes right through another arrow that’s sitting right center, and Leo winces at the reminder of getting shot in the shoulder. So he’d _meant_ to only injure, not to kill… well, Leo thinks, _at least he’s probably not going to kill me in my sleep_!

Leo just watches him for a few minutes. Michael sits down on the grassy hills, takes a swig from a silver thermos that looks identical to the one Leo was drinking potato soup from. He wipes off his brow, scraping dark hair behind his ears - he seems completely unaware that Leo’s watching him.

Does this make him a stalker? Gods, he _hopes_ not. He’s solely interested in the bow itself, that’s _all_. He made it, of course he wants to see how it works.

Michael sets down his thermos and picks up the bow. It’s in perfect working condition, as far as Leo can see. Good - he’d hate to have fucked up on something like that.

Leo turns around and walks back the way he came, still fiddling with metal parts and trudging back through the sand.

He really doesn’t have anything to do. The compass doesn’t pan out - all he gets out of _that_ is something so dysfunctional that the needle spins and spins and spins like it can’t find north. There’s probably some ore deposit beneath his feet, or an interfering magnetic field, maybe some nearby ferrous structure causing it to go cray-cray like that.

Either way, he’s tempted to go tell Michael about this, but he doesn’t bother.

He’s got a feeling that asshole doesn’t give a damn.

Leo lays on his tarp and stares up at the sky, at the clouds scraping through the blue like wisps of cotton. Gods does he wish he had some more metal, or Buford, or even just Festus’ disembodied head to look at (or the plans he’s been working on to try and get his body up and in working order again, so he could keep working on that.) He just wishes he had _something_ to do. 

Michael waving a bow at him and threatening him was less boring than sitting around with nothing to do, which is _probably_ saying a lot.

Hell, he’s surprised this guy hasn’t just shot him already.

The only _good_ thing about being on this weird island is the fact that he’s not dreaming. Dreamless sleep hasn’t come easily to Leo since he was a kid, and he’s got a feeling he just doesn’t remember those dreams (and he’s got a _great_ memory, when it comes to… certain things. You want random facts he saw on Jeopardy reruns or gossip he read on the front of a magazine? Leo’s got you, but he couldn’t tell you what he ate for breakfast the day before.)

But it’s sort of nice to not dream.

  


* * *

  


He’s not sure when he closed his eyes - which is weird, ‘cause usually he’s up and moving and buzzing with energy and doing _something_ (and half of the time he’s doing two or three things at once), but apparently he did. He might’ve even dozed off.

Sand shuffles against the tarp, and Leo’s eyes snap open. Someone’s casting a shadow over him, blocking out the light.

It’s Michael, because who _else_ would it be? He looks like he’s been eating lemons. Wow, Leo would kill for some lemonade… or literally anything that’s not sea water that he’s filtered through a shoddy handmade filter.

Michael gives him this look that’s probably the _exact_ cross between the face Leo makes when he gets motor oil all over his shoes and the look Piper and Jason gave him that one time they found out he stayed up all night working on the ship. Sort of annoyed, sort of disgusted, marginally concerned (or whatever the negative version of concern is, Leo’s not sure.)

“ _What_?” Leo asks, and props himself up on his elbows. They sort of stick to the tarp, from the summer sun burning down on him and making him sweat. Yuck. “Are you coming to gawk at me? I mean, I _know_ I’m hot, but -”

Michael gives him a light kick to the side. Doesn’t hurt at all, but Leo still lets out an instinctive “ow” in response, the tarp shifting under him.

“You said you wanted to fix the target.”

“Huh. Did I say that? It was a couple days ago, man.”

Michael snorts in response.

“Why? Like, you just bringing this up for no reason? Or are you asking me to fix it? I don’t work for free, and I _also_ don’t do things for people who point arrows at me and kick me. Like -” Leo gestures with his hand a little. “- I ain’t working for free, dude.”

Michael scrapes his hair behind his ears. It looks like he’s fighting a losing battle there, probably needs a haircut. “I got you a shirt. And food.”

“I can make my own food - and if I remember right, _you’re_ the one who insisted I get a shirt, even though we’re, like, at the _beach_.” Leo gives as much a shrug as he can, given he’s sitting up via his elbows. “Are you on something? Like, dude, you shot me!”

“You fell on my beach!”

“ _Your_ beach?”

Michael’s shoulders and neck go _visibly_ tense at that, and he plants his hands on his hips, glaring down at Leo. “I’ve been the only one here for a _really fucking long time_ , I think considering it _my_ beach is fine at this point.”

“It’s our beach now,” Leo says, speaking through gritted teeth.

“What? No, it’s not.”

“That’s communism, baby!”

Michael’s nails must be digging through his clothes with how hard his hands are pressed against his hips. “It’s my island. I was here first, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I noticed plenty.” Leo pushes himself onto his feet. “Still communism, though! ‘Sides, until I can get off here, you’re stuck with me,” Leo says, brushing some sand off his pants. Leo plants a hand on his toolbelt, gesturing with the other. “And given I don’t really got the _supplies_ , you’re stuck with me, muchacho.”

Michael glares up at him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Look,” says Leo, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I don’t want to be here. Do I gotta say that, like, ten gazillion more times until I get it through that thick skull of yours?”

“Are you calling me stupid?” Michael asks, almost incredulously.

“No. Maybe. Okay, maybe a little? I dunno, you _did_ shoot me -”

“- _you were on my beach!_ How was I to know you weren’t some monster the gods sent to torment me?”

Leo frowns. “Wait, has that happened before?”

“No.”

“Then why would you assume _that_? Dude, you gotta chill. Maybe take a swim, work on your tan, sing a song… like, hey, what do Apollo kids do that’s _not_ archery? Just don’t go around shootin’ people ‘cause they fell on your freaky island!”

“That doesn’t make me _stupid_!”

Nah, it probably makes Michael vigilant, but that doesn’t mean Leo’s _not_ upset about the whole thing. “I said only a little. Like, maybe twenty, thirty percent stupid? I’d say thirty-five at max.”

“ _How the fuck can someone be thirty-five percent stupid?_ ”

“Wait,” says Leo. “...weren’t we talking about something?”

Michael just… stares blankly at him. He presses his hand to his forehead, sighing sharply in response. He’s still scowling, but of course he is. “I asked you to fix my target.”

“Oh, sure, why not? S’not like I got anything better to do around here.” Leo shrugs. He really needs to move, needs to do something to keep his hands busy. He needs to figure out _something_ , and really, he thinks best while working (now if he just had some music…) “But you’ll owe me. Like, seriously, you already owe me a lot -”

“You _broke_ my bow! I don’t owe you shit!”

“You lunged at me, I just - I just pushed you off! _I_ didn’t break it!”

The wind rustles through the trees.

Michael’s arms look like they’re so tightly raveled together that pulling them apart would mean breaking them. “I still don’t owe you shit.”

“Man, you curse a lot. Is that like... a short person thing?” And Leo thought _he_ was short. He comes up to Jason’s chin, and Frank’s pretty tall, and Annabeth and Percy are both tall… not that they’re currently _on_ the ship.

 _That_ reminder feels like someone’s slapping him.

Gods, he needs _supplies_. He needs metal, he needs…

Michael’s looking at him like he plans to slap him, and Leo’s half-surprised he doesn’t. Instead, he just turns away and trudges back through the sands. It’s clear he’s heading back to the archery range, the one Leo just agreed to fix. He’s tempted to just stay here, and not go after him, not help out.

Leo follows.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ _Shut up_ ,” Michael snarls, cold eyes snapping in Leo’s direction. His teeth are grit together so hard that they look like they’ve fused into one singular set. “Fuck off.”
> 
> “Are you nuts, or something?”
> 
> “ _Did I not speak clearly enough_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i promise myself i wouldn't publish this until i hit 40k? yes. did i hit 40k? no. anyways, no more updates until i get to the part i'm really jazzed about writing.
> 
> once again: shout-out to the party ponies server! i love all of y'all.

His first thought when he sees the target is _what the actual fuck_? He’s not sure what his second is, but the moment Leo sees the target he knows exactly why Michael deigned to come over and talk to him, given the _target has fallen clean off_.

" _How_?" Leo asks, kneeling in the sandy grass to pick it up, yanking a few arrows out of the center, which is harder than it looks. "How the hell did you -"

Michael's standing just over his shoulder, so he can't see him, but Leo can easily picture him frowning down at the back of Leo's head. "I shot it."

"Hard enough to knock the target clean off?" Leo turns it over in his hands.

It's a pretty basic target, after all - made of wood, painted with circles, attached to what he _thinks_ might have been a loom once. There's marks from old arrows… and gods does he hope that's red paint. "Mikey, _dude_."

Michael smacks him lightly on the shoulder, and Leo glares up at him. Michael _is_ , in fact, frowning. "I shot it. It's whatever."

"No, no, no," Leo replies, tone incredulous. "Accidentally hitting a tree, breaking an arrow - now _that's_ whatever. This? Dude. This is not 'whatever.'"

He's actually impressed, if he's being honest.

Michael's scowl deepens, because of course it does, what did Leo expect? He crosses his arms, looking impatiently down at Leo. "Can you just shut up and fix it?"

"Uh," says Leo, flipping the target over in his hands. "Can Superman fly? Hell yes I _can_ , but that's a no-can-do zone 'til I get the deets on how this happened."

"I just shot it, that's all."

"You sure?"

"I'm a son of _Apollo_. You know, the god of _archery_?"

“Right,” Leo replies, and tries very hard not to roll his eyes.

He grabs his hammer, makes sure he has everything he needs. Behind him, the waves crash against the shore, and Michael stands over him casting a shadow, but Leo pays it no mind. He hums the tune to some song he can’t even remember the lyrics to, weighing the hammer in his hands. It’s not too hard to just hammer it back on, but he figures he may as well go the extra mile; by the time he’s finished, the target is planted so firmly on the makeshift stand (and yeah, it really _does_ look like an old loom torn to pieces, he saw one in Cabin Six once.)

He gets to his feet, brushing his hands off.

“Ta-da. Good as new. That’s some quality handiwork there, some grade A stuff. S’pretty wicked if I do say so myself.” Leo pauses, glancing over at Michael. “I mean mine. _My_ handiwork. Not yours, this target’s a bit wonky, y’know? You could do better.”

Whoops. He’d only _half_ -meant that to come out as an insult.

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I just mean -”

“ _Don’t_ ,” says Michael, rather loudly, and Leo stares at some driftwood a few feet away, tangled up in kelp or seaweed or something green. The seaweed looks like a party streamer. Leo’s struck with the stupid urge to go and poke it.

“I _was_ gonna offer to fix it for you,” Leo says, tearing his gaze away from the seaweed. “S’not like I got anything better to do.”

Michael’s scraping his hair behind his ear again, and Leo’s tempted to offer to get him a headband or a hair clip or something, but when he opens his mouth to offer, Michael’s already speaking over him. “It’s fine as is. It does the job just fine.”

“Does it now?” Leo pats the side of the target, careful to not get a splinter.

Michael gives a quiet huff in response. “Can you quit fucking touching it?”

Leo scratches at the side of his face, biting back a laugh. Is this guy forreal? Does he not have some impulsive need to touch everything he sees with a funky texture? Okay, that’s probably just an ADHD thing, but Michael’s probably got ADHD too, given he’s a demigod and that’s apparently a demigod thing (which makes Leo wonder if _everyone_ who has ADHD is actually a demigod… though that’s an entire train of thought he doesn’t need to spiral down on right now.)

“Yeah - yeah, I’ll quit touching your target. Just don’t shoot me _again_ for it, ‘kay?”

“ _You were on my beach!_ ”

“Hey, hey, hey - _our_ beach, remember? I’m staging a Marxist takeover of this island. You can have, like, half -”

“Shut _up_ ,” Michael barks out, and he’s leaning up on his feet and into Leo’s face. Leo backs up slightly, back hitting the target as he raises his hands. “I don’t care if you think this is _funny_ -”

“Hey, don’t put words in my mouth!”

“Stop bringing up that I shot you!”

“ _Mike_ ,” Leo says, and grins down at him, his hands still hovering in the air. “You _shot_ me. What, am I supposed to _not_ bring that up every time I get the chance? I mean, it’d make for a great story at the dinner table, if -”

“Are you incapable of shutting up or something? Are you _always_ just yappering on?” Michael looks like he’s about to jab a finger into Leo’s chest again, but he pulls back, jaw clenching as he bristles like some kind of angry chihuahua. “You’ve only been here for a couple of days, you do _not_ get to come in and start calling shit yours.”

“I said ‘ours’, I didn’t say it was mine!”

“Are _all_ demigods like this now?”

“Uh,” says Leo. “No? Yes? Maybe?”

Michael groans, and turns away, stalking off and down the beach.

* * *

He barely sleeps that night.

Leo tosses and turns on the tarp. It's impossible to get comfortable. So fucking impossible that Leo thinks it'd be easier to die than it'd be to just lay here, beneath a lean-to and a sky of stars dotting the black, but that's just a bad joke and he'd really rather not die, thank you very much.

The few times he slips unconscious, some noise makes his eyes snap back open, staring up at the expanse of stars above, more infinite than the sea about ten or twenty feet in front of him.

Jason would probably manage this just fine. Jason would've landed on this shit island, befriended Michael, and flown off with him and right back to the _Argo II_ with time to spare and probably some coconuts for 'em to crack open and eat like rabid little monkeys pawing their way through the stuff.

Hell, Piper would be doing better here, too! She'd probably just charmspeak her way into that cave, have a proper bed to sleep on. She wouldn't be waking up with back pain and all four limbs feeling numb.

But _no_. It's him stuck here.

Because of course it is.

He wonders, for the nth time since he got here, if they're out looking for him right now. Gods, he hopes so.

_Maybe they don't care. Maybe Jason and Piper are glad you're gone._

_You've alway been the third wheel. They don't need you._

Leo stares up at the sky, trying to ignore the images swimming through his head - maybe they'd all be better off without him.

Quests are supposed to be three, not seven. And three plus three is six. Maybe it's better off this way. He's out of the way, somewhere where he won't fuck up things, somewhere where they're safe from him.

Besides - they have Nico, if they really _do_ need a seventh...

Sure, he was the one who declared he’d build a crane to rescue them if he had to… but there’s no way in hell he can do that. At least he’d been working on upgrading the Argo - Gaea won’t know what’ll hit her.

But he’s also the guy who got possessed by an eidolon and shot at the Romans.

He’s also the guy who got himself _here_.

Leo pushes himself to his feet and walks down to the shore, sitting with his legs crossed and staring out at the horizon. The moon hangs low, a full circle, hovering between the stars and casting blue light across the beach. The waves loll against the sand, leaving frothy seafoam behind, pushing driftwood and shells and seaweed onto the beach.

There’s no ship on the horizon coming towards them, tracking Leo down. There’s nothing but the moon, pulling the tides back and forth.

Leo can only _hope_ they're out there, finding Percy and Annabeth and saving the world.

* * *

He wakes up to a seagull on his work table, holding a half-eaten hamburger bun in its mouth, very loudly shuffling around in the plastic bag filled with hamburger buns. There’s bread crumbs all over the table and all over him, several shredded up buns scattered across the tarp.

Leo jumps to his feet, grabbing his hammer and waving it wildly at the bird.

“Shoo! Get out! Go!”

The bird squawks at him, beady eyes darting back and forth as it takes flight, the bun still in its mouth. Leo waves his hammer at it, _daring_ it to bolt back down and grab more hamburger buns from the plastic container sitting on his worktable.

“Yeah, that’s right, _shoo_!” Leo calls after it, watching the bird land in the sand a few feet away, chowing down on the bun. At least, he thinks that’s what it’s doing - he can’t tell.

The bird drops the bun and flies off, leaving it in the sand.

Leo slumps back against the tarp, staring at the mess scattered around him. It’s not like he can’t get more hamburger buns… but he doesn’t really _want_ to, given aside from some apples and potato soup, all he’s had the past few days is overcooked hamburgers (sure, he’s good at cooking, but he keeps getting distracted by things.) And as great as hamburgers are, he’s got a huge hankering for literally anything else.

It takes him a few minutes to clean up. He tries to remember how long he’s been here, stuck on this island, but he can’t string the right numbers together. Has it been three or four or five days?

Gods, he needs a fucking miracle, and soon.

He also needs a shower or a bath or _something_ , soon, because trying to wash his hair in the ocean seems like a really bad idea, and he’s got a feeling he’s starting to stink. Leo lathers on extra sunscreen today, and checks to see if the toolbelt will produce magical deodorant or something (it does), but he doubts that disguises the fact that he hasn’t cleaned up since he was on the ship.

Leo fixes himself up another hamburger and heads on a walk around the island, looking for more wood. He bites down on his hamburger and gets a mouthful of sand. Gagging, he spits it out and claws at his tongue, trying to get the sand out.

If he’s going to build a boat of any sort, he _needs_ wood. Even if it’s just a shitty raft, that’d be better than nothing… but aside from Michael’s orchard and the palm trees and some driftwood, there’s really not that much to use on this island.

Michael’s practicing archery when he passes by, of course, standing several feet away from the fixed-up target, his fancy-schmancy new bow in his hands. Leo holds up a hand in a wave, and Michael flips him off without even completely looking in his direction.

Leo keeps walking.

There’s not much new driftwood, but he manages to get back to his lean-to with an armful, which is more than he had yesterday, and that’s definitely something… even if it’s something small. He still doesn’t have enough for a boat.

It could take months, even years, for him to build a boat at _this_ rate. Maybe if he can convince Michael to let him chop down his orchard…

Who’s he kidding? No way Michael would agree to that. He’d probably just tell him to fuck off and flip him the bird, or get up in his face and shout at him like some very hyper and angry ferret.

Besides, he needs metal… metal that he really doesn’t have.

 _He was supposed to be the one to close the doors_.

Who’s going to close them in his place, if he can’t get off this shitty island for _years_?

The rest of the day passes in a haze: Leo tries to draw up plans for a boat, figure out how to make it work with what little he’s got - which winds up being a huge waste of paper, and a waste of space on his desk with all the crumpled-up balls of it. There’s too many issues, ones that thinking mechanically and trying to picture a shitty driftwood boat don’t solve.

He _really_ wishes he had Google or a book or something out here, so he could figure out if palm trees could make a decent raft or boat. He’s assuming probably not, given what Michael said about palm wood not making a good bow.

Thinking about Michael makes him think about that terracotta jar, and how he _should’ve_ said something, _should’ve_ finished his sentence and asked if he was okay… right?

He grips at the edge of his work table, knuckles going white.

By the time the sun sets, a blur on the horizon, Leo’s exhausted. He passes out right on the tarp, doesn’t bother with making himself comfortable, and wakes up trying to figure out how many days he’s been here once again.

It feels like he’s living in a Groundhog Day loop; every day’s almost _exactly_ the same. He checks the compass, walks around the island holding it as far away from him as possible, but it just keeps spinning and spinning. Leo’s got a feeling that wherever he is… it’s designed to be off charts and maps, designed to be unfindable. Maybe impossible to leave.

Gods, he can only hope not.

He eats hamburgers that are getting _really_ old (and he tires hot dogs for lunch, but they’re undercooked.) He occasionally sees Michael on the beach or at the archery range, too.

About a day and a half passes in a daze - Leo trying to figure out how to make his plans work, trying to find more driftwood, trying to figure out if a palm tree would make a good boat.

“Alright,” he tells himself, mainly just to hear someone talking. He’s not, like, obsessed with the sound of his own voice or something, but it’s better than just listening to birds squawk at him or the ocean rolling across the shore or the wind, blowing through his ears and messing up his hair. It’s definitely better than just listening to his thoughts.

He’s got a feeling Michael’s not going to care too much if he cuts down a palm tree to check over the wood, so Leo pulls a saw out of his toolbelt (thanks, magic) and finds a small one, sitting pretty on the shore and casting shadows over the shell-dotted sand. He kicks a few seashells out of the way, making sure there’s enough room on the beach for it to land, and moves behind the tree, measuring it just in case.

Yeah, it’s pretty small, all things considering. And it won’t take very long to cut down, maybe like, a minute, if he’s careful, so…

Leo brandishes the saw in the air and sets to work.

Just as the tree’s falling to the ground, landing with a thud against the sand, the leaves landing in the ocean (which flies everywhere, even down the front of Leo’s shirt, and he’s quickly pulling it away from his skin to brush the sand off)...

“ _What the fuck are you doing?_ ”

Leo groans and turns, holding the saw in his hands. “Cutting down a tree?”

“The hell you are,” Michael replies, standing about two feet away with his hands on his hips. He strides towards Leo, finger pointed right at him, scowling as per usual.

“Well, I can’t really, like, put it back -”

“Stop cutting down shit!”

“This is - dude, this is the only tree I’ve cut down!”

Michael’s right in front of him now, jabbing his finger into Leo’s chest. Leo scoots back a step, closer to the ocean. “Stop touching shit that’s not yours!”

“It’s - it’s a _tree_!” Leo takes another few steps back, shoving the saw back into his toolbelt. “Like, it’s literally just a tree, cutting down one tree to try and build a boat’s not really a big deal!”

Michael glares up at him, his eyes twitching slightly, and takes two steps forward, shoving his hands against Leo’s chest. “I _said_ -”

Leo stumbles backwards and lands ass-first in the water. It’s _way_ colder than expected. One of his shoes lodges in the sand, and trying to pull it out just pulls his foot right out.

Michael stares down at him, his eyes wide, mouth open.

Leo’s hands clench, nails biting against his palms, and he surges upwards, grabbing Michael by the shirt and pulling him right into the ocean with him. Michael lets out a shriek and lands face-first, sand and salt water spraying _everywhere_. Leo scoots backwards, trying to get to his feet, but Michael grabs him by the ankle and pulls him down.

As it turns out, landing on your ass really does hurt even if it’s in water - and especially hurts when someone immediately lunges at you. Leo throws his arms up in defense, knocking Michael back _again_ , and Michael goes skidding back, scrambling against the sand. He’s soaking wet, clothes soaked through, and there’s sand caked onto his legs and arms and cheeks, hair wet and disheveled.

Leo starts laughing.

“Stop laughing!” Michael barks out, a bit shrill - which just makes Leo laugh even harder, clutching at grains of sand. “Oh, _fuck_ off!”

“You should - you should see the look on your face,” Leo manages, between fits of laughter.

Michael scowls at him, his hair falling in his face. He angrily scrapes it back, wiping some sand off his face. “You’re an asshole.”

“Hey, hey, hey, pot, meet kettle - we’re both black.” Leo snickers, then coughs, spitting out some sand he hadn’t even noticed was sticking to his mouth. “You look like you just lost a fight with the ocean!”

“You pulled me into it!”

“You pushed me,” Leo replies, peeling a long strand of seaweed off his pants, and he’s still laughing so hard his cheeks hurt from being pulled so wide. His shoulders are shaking, and that’s mostly the laughter, but it’s probably the sea too. “You started it!”

“You -”

“ _Dude_ ,” Leo says, taking a few deep breaths to try and stop cackling like an idiot. “Dude, if you haven’t noticed, I’m tryna find a way off this island!”

Michael glares so hard at him that Leo thinks his eyes might bug right out of his head. Then - almost like a switch flicks - his shoulders drop down, hands running through his hair as he shakes his head to the side, bits of sand falling out. “Fine, cut down as many trees as you want, I don’t care.”

“Then stop trying to pick fights with me,” Leo says, and Michael glares at him with his hands in his hair and his face still covered in sand, which just sets Leo off into another fit of laughter.

“Stop being so _annoying_ ,” Michael hisses.

“I can’t help being like this. I know, I know, you can’t handle how _cool_ I am -”

“Shut _up_ ,” grumbles Michael, pushing off the ground and to his feet. He turns away and stalks off, probably heading back to his little cave.

Leo grins and follows him, grabbing his shoe out of the sand. “Hey, Mikey, buddy -”

“Leave me alone.” says Michael, not even looking over his shoulder. He just speeds up, walking faster. Leo keeps up with relative ease, and Michael whips his head over his shoulder, brows knitting together so hard they look like a unibrow. “Are you _following me_?”

“Um, you clearly have a shower or a bath or somethin’, and since _you_ pushed _me_ into the water, I think I deserve that, y’know? I’m just sayin’.”

“ _No_ ,” says Michael, who keeps walking faster, kicking up sand.

“Yes,” says Leo, and the sand’s hitting his ankles. Great. Even more sand! He’s _definitely_ starting to get why that Anakin guy in Star Wars hates it. It truly is coarse and rough and gets everywhere. “You owe me for that.”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“Bro, my man, _amigo_ \- well, maybe more _enemigo_ over _amigo_ , but I wouldn’t really call you my enemy per-say -”

Michael flips him the bird without even _looking_ at him, just keeps walking with his shoulders squared. They’re only a few feet away from the lean-to and Leo’s workbench… did they really walk that fast?

“Wow, _rude_ ,” Leo says, and continues following. “Look, I’m not trying to invade your personal space -”

“You’re _not_ trying? Wow, good job at _failing miserably_ ,” Michael replies, and skids to a stop, turning on his feet towards Leo. His face is scrunched up and still covered in sand. “Stop fucking following me. Go fuck yourself for all I care!”

Leo bites back another fit of laughter. “No can do, my dude. I’m using your bath-shower-whatever whether you like it or not. You, like, seriously owe me this one.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, I am.”

Michael grits his teeth, very visibly, and glowers up at him. “Whatever! Fine. You smell horrible, anyways, you’d be doing _me_ a favor, since you’re being so fucking _stubborn_.”

“Stubborn _is_ my middle name. Well, like, my second middle name, ‘cause my first is -”

“I _literally_ care more about a piece of dog shit.”

Trying to picture that makes Leo snicker.

Michael just glares even harder at him before he turns around and heads up the hills, and Leo’s quick to follow, keeping up with him just fine. Benefits of being almost a foot taller, he supposes, which _is_ a weird thought. He’s never been that much taller than someone… who’s not, like, _eight_.

Michael storms right into the cave, and then stops a few inches in. He turns towards Leo, hands planted on his hips. “The bathroom’s in here, but _I’m_ going first.”

“But -”

“My cave, my rules.”

Okay, sure, he can get with that. Leo nods, and Michael closes the curtains so quickly it makes them shake, closing Leo off from looking in the cave. The curtain rod’s not completely level… Leo’s struck with the need to fix it, but he’s always struck with that need. If he’s not moving his hands…

After about three minutes, Leo gives up on waiting outside the cave entrance and finds a place to sit in the dirt, trying to scrape sand off his shirt while he eyes the weeds growing in the vegetable beds. The soil’s cracked, sunbaked, clearly in need of watering, and Leo’s eyes land on a watering can. He licks his lips and gets to his feet, grabbing the watering can and filling it up in the fountain.

At least this is better than just sitting there, right?

He waters the plants, pulls the weeds while he’s waiting. He’s not sure how long it takes, but by the time he’s done with this bed, Michael’s still not out, so Leo moves onto the next one in lieu of just sitting back down.

Overhead, the sun hangs low in the sky, inching towards the horizon. It’s probably five or six in the evening, but Leo can’t really keep track without a sundial or a clock or something, and it’s not like he’s got the supplies to actually _make_ a proper clock out here.

So he’s got no clue what time it is.

Finally, he hears the curtains practically rip open, and Leo drops the half-empty watering can onto the gravel as Michael strides towards him. He definitely looks clean, that’s for sure.

Michael’s rubbing at his hair with a fluffy white towel, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder towards the cave.

He doesn’t say anything. Leo gives him a thumbs up and heads inside.

* * *

The cave hasn’t changed at all since Leo was last in it. It’s still very much a cave, the glittery ceiling hanging above him, silk curtains dividing the cave into sections. He doesn’t really want to snoop around, but pulling aside one of the curtains reveals a pool carved into the cave walls, water trickling from a bronze fixture. There’s a little soap bowl sitting at the edge, two towels folded up and pushed against the wall, and a couple clear glass bottles filled with what he thinks has to be shampoo and conditioner and body wash.

He closes the curtains behind him and strips down, leaving his toolbelt as close as possible.

The water’s surprisingly warm. He sinks into it, resting his elbows against the stone floor and using it like a ledge, savoring the warmth for a few moments before he remembers he’s supposed to clean himself up. Leo actually manages to wash off his hair for the first time in gods only know how many days, scrubbing at his scalp with shampoo that smells very, very floral and vaguely like coconut.

So does the conditioner, actually… though there’s a bottle of something that smells like cinnamon, so he uses that instead.

At _least_ he doesn’t smell like sweat or oil.

He climbs back out and dries off, reaching for his clothes. They’re stacked neatly, clean and slightly warm. The shirt’s not the same one he was wearing earlier, and his jeans have been replaced with drawstring pants, his sneakers sitting beside them and clean of dirt and sand. His hand recoils.

He hadn’t even heard someone come in.

Maybe it’s those ‘invisible spirits’ Michael mentioned.

Leo dresses as quickly as possible. His hair’s still slightly wet, sticking to the back of his neck, and trying to finagle it in front of the mirror winds up just making his hair look like a mess, and running a comb through it only helps a little. His mom taught him how to deal with curly hair when he was a kid, though he thinks she mentioned _not_ using shampoo once or twice…

He turns away from the mirror and heads out the entrance, pushing the curtains aside. Michael’s sitting at one of the fountains, peeling apart a clementine with his nails. He’s not scowling, which is weird, so Leo clears his throat and walks towards him.

“Is that bathtub magical, or something?” he says, and gestures vaguely towards the cave.

“No idea,” says Michael, and he immediately frowns up at Leo.

The fountain… ticks.

He continues peeling the orange, tearing off a chunk of rind.

“Did you, like, sneak in there and switch my clothes out, ‘cause -”

“No.”

“Cool,” says Leo, staring longingly at the orange for a moment. Fruit sounds _really_ good right now. “Uh, so… are you interested in sharing the fruit here, or…”

“Whatever,” says Michael, peeling off another bit of rind before breaking the orange open and scooping out that white gunk in the middle. Leo stares at it for a moment before Michael sighs and holds out one half, his fingers coated in a faint white dust.

Leo doesn’t bother questioning it. He breaks a piece off and pops it in his mouth. It’s almost overwhelmingly sweet. “Thanks,” he says, and then remembers he probably shouldn’t be speaking with his mouth closed. “I’m… uh, I’m gonna head back down to the beach, I guess?”

Michael doesn’t so much as glance up at him. He just gives a “mhm” in response, like he’s deigning to acknowledge he even heard Leo in the first place. If that’s all he gets, Leo guesses that’s not too bad considering this guy wanted to kill him a couple days back.

Was that a couple days ago? He’s lost track of time. _Fuck_.

“I’ll see you later,” Leo says, and he’s about to move down to the beach when…

“ _Why_ are you here?” Michael asks, and his voice sounds a bit raspy. He has this expression on his face that makes him look like he’s about to stalk off to go get some air, but he doesn’t get up.

“I _told_ you, I’m on a quest! And I - well, I got thrown off my ship by this ice goddess, and she kinda just chucked me over here, I guess? So, now I’m here,” Leo says, and gestures towards the path down to the bright blue ocean, looking rather cheerful despite how irritated Leo feels. “ _Believe me_ , I would’ve chosen some other island to land on if I coulda!”

“What kind of quest sends you on a boat with an _ice goddess_?” Michael asks, cocking his head slightly. It makes some hair fall in his face, and Michael tilts it back, carving a few fingers through the strands to tuck it back again.

The gesture’s a bit distracting - movement, and all.

Leo blinks for a second. “The Great Prophecy. I dunno, man, she was probably hunting us down ‘cause she’s working for -”

“ _The Great Prophecy_?” Michael stares at him in blatant disbelief. “What? Did something happen to Percy Jackson?”

“Um…” Yeah, he thinks, something _did_ happen to Percy Jackson. He’s currently in _Tartarus_. “That’s a long story.”

Michael sweeps his arm out, gesturing sharply towards the path… towards the sea. “I’ve got time.”

And - Leo realizes, as he sits down next to him - he has time, too.

* * *

It’s weird to talk without Michael looking at him like he wants to strangle him. He still looks annoyed, scowling at Leo as they sit at the edge of the fountain, toying with the fabric on his chiton - but he doesn’t look like he’s about to kill him, and that’s good enough for Leo. It’s still weird, but hey! If Michael wants to know things about the outside world, maybe that’s a good thing!

The fountain ticks again, which probably isn’t normal, but it’s not grating on his ears _too_ much. His mouth tastes citrus-y, sort of filmed-over with that gunky stuff on the clementine pieces. But he tries to ignore that (and the ticking), mainly ‘cause picking at his teeth seems like it’d be a little rude.

He gives a quick rundown of things, but only gets to “and that’s when this girl Annabeth showed up, talking ‘bout her missing boyfriend, Percy” before Michael cuts him off.

“Two things,” says Michael (and he’s _still_ scowling, Jesus Christ.) “What happened in Manhattan? Also, Percy and Annabeth _dating_ now?”

“What do you mean what happened in Manhattan? I’ve never been to Manhattan.”

“The Great Prophecy? Kronos’ army?”

Leo’s very briefly distracted by a butterfly hovering around the roses growing in one corner of the garden, but his gaze flicks back towards Michael when he speaks, recognition settling in at the mention of his dear ol’ godly great-gramps.

“Oh, _that_ Manhattan? I never really got the details, but I know Percy and Annabeth fought Kronos, but then this guy Luke killed him, and then the gods decided they were that blue guy from Aladdin and granted Percy a wish or somethin’ and he asked them to start claiming every demigod and erect cabins and shit.”

Michael stares at him for a moment before looking at his hands. They’re folded up in his lap - unlike Leo’s, because he’s currently messing around with some gears and half-heartedly building something - and they don’t really seem all that interesting, but Michael stares at ‘em like they’re a Rembrandt or something. “Will Solace, Kayla Knowles, Austin Lake… are they -”

“Dead?”

“Yeah,” Michael says, and he does _not_ sound annoyed. He looks away from Leo - are his hands shaking…?

“Uh, no, they’re all fine. Will’s the counselor now - apparently the previous one died in the battle of Manhattan? I dunno what happened there.”

 _Wait a second_ -

Michael’s expression gets slightly pinchier. “That would be me.”

Yep. That’s exactly where he knows the name ‘Michael Yew’ from. The previous counselor Cabin Seven, who died fighting Kronos’ forces. Will had mentioned him once, hadn’t named him, and when Leo had slipped up mid-conversation and asked about the guy, he’d gotten a sad frown and a name in response. Something about him crashing through a bridge, or getting dropped off a bridge, or being thrown off a bridge? There was _definitely_ a bridge involved. It’d reminded him a little of that folktale… the one with the goats and the bridge.

Ah, the weird connections Leo’s brain makes. They’re just great.

“They really let Will be a counselor? He’s _thirteen_!”

Leo thinks for a second - he’s pretty sure Will turns fifteen in a few weeks, but maybe that’s Kayla? Or maybe it’s one of his siblings? No, it’s definitely Will. “Dude, the battle of Manhattan was last August. It’s July.”

Michael glares at him, before that glare fades and his shoulders droop. For the first time since they’ve met (all of, what, three or four days ago?) he doesn’t look pissed off and ready to start a fight - he just looks… upset.

“You’ve…” Leo stares blankly at him, calculating the dates in his head (it’s July, that was August…) “Holy Hephaestus. You’ve been here almost a year. No _wonder_ you’re so pissy!”

“I am _not_ pissy!” That gets him scowling again, and he shoves at Leo’s arm, just slightly. Leo almost falls into the fountain, scrambles to grab at the ledge. His hair's already wet, he doesn't need it wetter.

“Yeah, you are. I mean -” Leo gestures vaguely. “I don’t think I’ve seen you _not_ looking at me like you’re planning my murder.”

“I’m _not_ planning your muder.”

“Well, you _look_ like you are! I mean, that’s just the general vibe I get from your face -”

Michael’s eye twitches slightly at that - and so do his hands, scraping some hair behind his ears (and _gods_ is that getting really annoying for Leo to watch; he really wants to just offer up a hair clip or something.)

"I'm just saying, I get why you're being a -"

" _Whatever_ ," Michael snaps out, effectively cutting him off. His voice sounds rough, off, but still rather pissy - so, you know, the usual. “So what the fuck happened to Percy?”

“Oh, yeah,” Leo says. Right. They were having a conversation about the Great Prophecy, weren’t they? “Uh, he up and vanished one day. Then Annabeth goes searching - and like I said -”

Leo has a habit of gesticulating while he talks, and he almost hits Michael several times while explaining what happened on their quest to free Hera. When he tries miming Jason’s big speech while staring down Porphyrion, the whole ‘I’ll feed you to your own dogs’ thing, Michael cuts him off _again_.

“ _Camp Jupiter_?”

“Dude, quit cuttin’ me off when I’m telling a story! I’ll get to that in a second,” Leo replies, and frowns at him. This, he thinks, would probably be more comfortable sitting elsewhere - that butterfly keeps catching his eye, and the water sort of spritzing against the back of his neck (even if just barely) is getting annoying. He’s not exactly _comfortable_ , but at least the garden smells nice. “Anyways, as I was saying, me and Pipes broke Hera out, etc., etc., etc. And then Jason got his memories back -”

“- _What’s_ Camp Jupiter?”

“Hey, chillax, Mikey, my man.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Sorry,” Leo replies, staring down at his soot-stained hands, rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand. “Camp Jupiter’s the camp for Roman demigods.”

“ _Roman_?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, did I not mention that bit?”

Michael glares at him. There’s that whole ‘mentally planning your death’ thing - it almost reminds him a little of the expression Annabeth has on the regular, like she’s off calculating things.

“Guess I didn’t,” Leo says, and scratches at the back of his neck. “Sorry, got kinda caught up in the whole thing. Coach always says -”

“Who the fuck’s this ‘Coach’ guy?”

“Coach Hedge. He was our protector.”

Michael’s face goes slightly slack at that. “Gleeson Hedge?”

“Yeah, you know him?”

“He was my protector, too.”

 _What_? Well, maybe they actually do have something in common. “Okay, wow, you _gotta_ elaborate on that. Did he use a baseball bat back then? I dunno how old you were when he showed up to drag you off to camp, but like -”

“No.”

“No?” Leo stares blankly at him. “Hey, we’re all - well, I’d say we’re all friends here, but -”

“It’s none of your business,” Michael says, and grits his teeth, getting to his feet. “So, this prophecy. What is it? What happened to Percy Jackson?”

“Oh, yeah… Hera sent him to Camp Jupiter. Or - I guess _Juno_ sent him there?” The whole Greek vs Roman thing still confuses Leo… his dad’s named Vulcan in Rome, which _always_ makes him think of that guy from Star Trek. Sure, his ears are a little pointy at the tips, but he’s _not_ an alien. “And he got sent on some quest to Alaska, to free Thanatos. ‘Least, I think it was Thanatos, Frank and Hazel -”

“Who?”

“Uh… Frank Zhang - he’s a Mars kid, that’s Ares’ Roman form, I guess. And Hazel Levesque, she’s a daughter of Pluto, which makes her, like, Nico’s half-half sister? Or maybe full half-sister?” That’s even more confusing. Are all the other Vulcan kids out there his half-siblings, too? He’s already got several back at camp, does he gotta start getting along with those, two?

Well… once things straighten up.

If they do.

“Anyways, they’re two of the seven halfbloods in the prophecy. Me, Pipes, Jason, Hazel, Frank, Percy, and Annabeth. That’s us.”

“ _You’re_ really part of the Great Prophecy. I find that hard to believe,” Michael snorts, and yet again tucks some hair behind his ear.

Leo’s already reaching for his toolbelt. “Hey, uh - do you want a hair clip for that, or somethin’?”

“No,” says Michael, before Leo’s even finished speaking. Then he pauses, scowling at Leo. “Sure.”

Bingo, Leo thinks, and leans forward to drop a couple into Michael’s hand. Michael pops one open and slides it into his hair with ease, clipping it back on both sides. The clips blend right in with his dark hair. At least he doesn’t have to watch this guy struggle with his hair anymore, hopefully.

He wonders how long this guy’s been dealing with trying to keep his hair behind his ears. Probably not super long - he’s been here a year, and his hair’s not shoulder-length or anything. Clearly he’s been cutting it. Not very _well_ , given it’s choppier than the haircut Piper gave herself back at Wilderness, but...

“You’re _welcome_ ,” Leo says, and Michael scowls even scowl-ier at him.

“Thanks,” he mutters, practically beneath his breath.

He’s still just standing there, not even completely facing Leo. Leo’s not sure if he’s planning to sit back down, if he’s just going to keep standing there while they try and have a conversation (try being the operative word), if he’s going to stalk off into the cave.

Hell, Leo’s not sure if _Michael_ knows what he’s going to do.

The water continues spritzing against his back. He’s probably going to have to dry his shirt off, isn’t he? Jeez. And he just got it.

“So, uh…”

Michael presses his fingers to his forehead, the same gesture Leo does when he has a headache. “Roman gods exist.”

“Yeah. I mean, s’weird enough the Greek gods are around and kicking, but Roman too? Hasn’t society had enough of these guys? I don’t -” _Really think we need ‘em_ , is what he wants to say, but he’s heard enough horror stories about good ol’ Zeus getting pissed off ‘cause some poor camper cursed his name. “Anyways, yeah, Roman gods exist, and they got a camp in California.”

Michael mutters something that sounds close to ‘of _course_ it’s in California’, but Leo doesn’t fully catch it, so he ignores it.

“So, uh - that’s everything, I guess.”

Michael plants a hand on his hip, hand still pressed to his brow. “So, let me get this straight: Percy defeated Kronos, disappeared, the gods cut off contact, some guy named Jason shows up, Gaea rises, and you built a gigantic ship called the Argo II.”

“Yup, that about sums it up.”

“One more question.”

“Hit me.” _Wait_. “Don’t _literally_ hit me, just hit me with the question -”

“Did the Ares Cabin ever show up to fight Kronos?” Michael spits out the words like they’re a curse.

Oh, right, Leo remembers _this_ one. Cabin Five’s golden chariot, how it’d originally been Cabin Seven’s, how Clarisse La Rue refused to take the Ares cabin to fight - wait, if Michael was the counselor… “Yeah, uh… she did. Killed a drakon.”

“Fucking ‘course she did.”

“Some girl died, though.” Leo purses his lips, thinking. “Silena, I think? She was Kronos’ spy. That’s all I really know. My friend Piper’s counselor for the Aphrodite kids now, though.”

Michael’s hand drops from his forehead. “ _Silena_ was the spy? Silena’s _dead_?”

“Yeah, uh - I don’t really know the deets, y’know? Wasn’t really my -”

“Right.” Michael shakes his head, glowering - and then he turns around and kicks a small clay pot sitting by the fountain. It shatters, bits of brown covering the grass, getting in the vegetable beds. “Fucking _shit_.”

He drops to his knees, picking up the pieces, cussing in ancient Greek. Leo watches him for a moment, brows knit together, before he moves off the fountain and towards him.

“Do you -”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Michael snarls, cold eyes snapping in Leo’s direction. His teeth are grit together so hard that they look like they’ve fused into one singular set. “Fuck off.”

“Are you nuts, or something?”

“ _Did I not speak clearly enough_?”

Leo pulls back, licking his lips. “Hey, look, I -” _Thought we were maybe getting somewhere that wasn’t you yelling at me, but okay then!_ “Let me help. You’re gonna hurt yourself, that looks sharp -”

“Whatever,” Michael mumbles, piling up the pieces of clay so quickly Leo thinks he might slash his hand open.

Leo stares at him for a moment, swallowing hard. He kneels down next to Michael, careful not to stab himself on the pieces of clay, carefully picking up a few smaller pieces. There’s dirt spread all over the grass, roots poking through and leading up to orange-colored blooms. Leo doesn’t touch that - he’s basically the opposite of a green thumb, he thinks he’d probably kill it just by touching it.

Michael’s silent. Doesn’t say anything, doesn’t so much as acknowledge Leo’s helping him out.

_Has he really been here, alone, for almost a year?_

A bird caws overhead, and Leo snaps out of his thoughts, continuing to pile up the pieces of clay and set them on the edge of one of the vegetable beds. They’re not as sharp as he thought they were - and based on how carelessly Michael’s handling them, he’s half-glad for that. He’d hate to see the guy slice up his hands (they’re _already_ covered with barely healed-over cuts and scars and blisters, from what he can see… what the hell is this guy _doing_?)

He sneaks a glance at Michael’s face. His eyes are lined with red, like they were when he broke the bow, his mouth pressed in a line so thin it seems almost white... he sort of looks like he’s struggling not to -

The grass sure is green, and the clay pieces sure are very… clay-like?

He’s not sure what to say, how to diffuse the silence. Leo sets the flower aside, pushing the dirt enough to get the pieces of clay beneath. The breeze blows through the grass and flowers, rustling them and pushing them together - it smells like earth, like flowers. Honestly, it’s better than the air down at the beach, which smells so thickly of salt and seaweed and the sea that Leo thinks he’s going to gag on it sometimes.

Michael makes a weird sniffling noise. Leo glances up, then immediately back at the ground. Seeing him struggling not to cry makes Leo’s head spin like a crankshaft, like helicopter blades trying to kick off into the air and whoosh away.

"Are you… can I...”

The helicopter blades in his head sputter out.

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

“Just go away,” Michael mumbles.

And Leo should go. He should really go. _He should definitely go_.

He gets to his feet. There’s dirt caked to the knees of his pants and the fronts of his shoes. “Hey, I’m, uh -” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m gonna…”

Michael gives him a dismissive hand gesture in response. Leo shoves his hands in his pockets, glancing back towards him as he heads down the path and back towards the beach - he’s still just sitting there, in the grass, his elbows on his legs and his head in his hands.

* * *

If there is an actual, proper Hell out there, Leo’s starting to think _this_ is it. He’s basically living in Limbo. Sure, he’s got a nice little lean-to, he’s got a fire pit, he’s got a bench and a work table… and he’s free to just walk the beach, but that’s basically all he can do. That, and little wind-up toys that walk right off the table and get stuck, but that’s not much in the long run.

He wonders how Piper, Jason, and the others are doing. He can picture Piper checking that weird dagger of hers to see if she can locate him, or Jason flying up and getting sick in the air from trying to find where Leo might have landed. Maybe Frank’s off turning into a bird and checking out islands, looking for Leo (or his remains.)

Nah, he thinks. They’d go look for Percy and Annabeth.

But he’s already had all these thoughts before, and there’s no point in thinking about it too much. Leo keeps working, keeps himself busy, keeps up repairs on the Archimedes sphere and makes sure his table doesn’t fall over. He makes himself a fishing rod and tries fishing, ‘cause anything would be better than hot dogs and hamburgers, but Leo gives up pretty quickly.

Besides, if he’s going to be stuck here for a year or more, he’ll probably learn eventually, right?

When he wakes up the next morning, Leo decides it’s time for a change in routine. Not that he hasn’t had a makeshift one, but he needs something to do instead of just walking around the beach aimlessly. He drags that palm tree back to his camp, checks it over… it might make a decent raft if he had several of them, but he still doesn’t have the scrap metal he needs to make a proper boat, which would be way preferable.

Either way, he has to keep moving. Leo’s _always_ been restless, _always_ needed to move and move and _keep_ moving. Even when he’s sitting at his workbench, working his hands, he’s swaying side-to-side. Even when he’s walking down the beach, he’s trying to get his damned compass to work. It’s probably the ADHD - he remembers someone saying, once, that he was ‘more ADHD than the average demigod.’

Not that he has any idea what _that_ means.

He’s half-asleep at his work table, one of those wind-up toys making skitter-y noises against the sand, when a noise startles him into full consciousness. He glances around, but there’s nothing there except for a bird sitting on top of his lean-to, holding a worm in its mouth.

It’s definitely not a seagull, and it’s not a pigeon or a crow or a grackle (fucking asshole birds), so he has no clue what kind of a bird that is. Either way, that’s _all_ it is, and Leo frowns, pushing to his feet and yawning, stretching his arms above his head and in front of him to get all the kinks out of his shoulders.

Gods, he is so _bored_. He can’t just throw himself into his work or keep walking the perimeter of this island, kicking sand all over the beach and dragging chunks of driftwood around. The only time things seem to pick up is when he’s talking to Michael… which makes some sense, but _also_ makes Leo want to bang his head on his work table.

So he does what any regular guy in his situation (y’know, trapped on an island in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and only one island-mate) would do, and goes to pester Michael.

Michael’s not on the beach, practicing archery, which is a waste of a good ten minutes of walking, but he _is_ in the garden, laying on the grass beneath the cedar and fruit trees, the sunlight dappling shadows over his clothes and face.

He has a hand over his eyes. Is he taking a nap?

Minus the chiton, and the pants he’s wearing beneath, stained green at the knees… if he had a piece of wheat in his mouth he probably wouldn’t look out of place on some farm, somewhere.

“Hey, can I borrow some oranges?” Leo asks, a bit loudly. “I -”

“Whatever,” Michael replies, without moving his hand. “Take whatever you want.”

“Sweet,” says Leo, and he doesn’t move an inch.

Michael does move his hand this time, glaring up at Leo. “Did you want something else?”

“Nah, I’m just here to pester you,” Leo says, and drops down, sitting cross-legged a couple feet away from him. “I figure, since we’re stuck together on our no nudity, pro-communism island -”

“Unfortunately.”

“- we might as well get to know each other, right?””

“No.”

“Awe, c’mon.”

“ _No_.”

Leo shrugs, hands fidgeting. Yeah, he could really, really use something to do with his hands right now. He instinctively reaches for his toolbelt, pulling out some gears and tiny metal scraps. “Look, Mitch, my man -”

Michael props his head up with his elbow, looking sardonically at him. “ _Mitch_?”

“Yeah, I mean… it _could_ be a nickname for Michael, right?”

“Do I _look_ like a Mitch to you?”

Leo pictures Piper’s half-brother, Mitchell, for a moment. He definitely didn’t look so… ferret-y. “Nah, not really. How ‘bout Mickey?”

“No.”

“Mick?”

“Fuck you.”

“Mitt?”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” Michael grumbles, and lays back down on the ground, looking pointedly away from him.

“Alright, sunshine it is, then. Y’know, ‘cause your dad’s Apollo, and your sunny disposition -”

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you?”

“Uh,” says Leo. “Do you want a list? ‘Cause I could _probably_ write you up a list. Would you prefer it alphabetized, or chronological?”

“That’s -” Michael looks over at him, pulling a face. “No. I don’t.”

Thank god. Leo doesn’t have any paper or a pen. “Alright-y. No list it is, then. How’s… Mike and Ike? Nah, that’s way too -”

“Holy shit. What’s your obsession with nicknames?” There’s heat in Michael’s voice, but Leo doesn’t blink at it; he’s sort of used to this guy looking at him with a sour face and sounding pissed off. Maybe it’s habitual, or something. “Can you fucking drop it?”

Leo glances down at the wind-up toy he’s making. _Again?_ Is this all he’s capable of making now? Gods, he needs to get off this island. “Sure. No nicknames for you, then. Just for the record, I think -”

“Great,” Michael replies, cutting him off.

It’s very silent for a moment. Very, very silent. There’s just the leaves rustling, the branches above creaking from the wind, the breeze pushing through the grass and Leo’s hair.

Leo finishes his wind-up toy and sets it on the ground, winding it up and watching it clumsily maneuver through the grass and right into a tree. “Okay, so… no nicknames. What else isn’t on the table for talking ‘bout?”

“ _Everything_. Fuck off.”

Wow, this guy really doesn’t want to talk. Leo would be fine with that if they weren’t the only two people on this gods forsaken island; he really doesn’t like Michael at all. But here he is, trying to make small talk… and yet.

“Jeez, who spat in your quiver? You’re _really_ cranky.”

“What, am I a toddler now? Are you going to tell me to go take a nap?” Michael properly sits up this time, his legs sprawled under him in an awkward and probably uncomfortable manner. “What part of ‘leave me alone’ and ‘go away’ and ‘fuck off’ are you incapable of understanding?”

“What part of ‘we’re stuck here together, probably for an eternity, might as well get to know each other better’ don’t you get? Look, man, I’m just trying to diffuse this… weird situation here. I know you don’t like me, and you shot me, and -”

Michael glares daggers at him. “Quit bringing that up.”

“Hey, just think, if we ever get off this island, it really _will_ be a funny story to tell over dinner back at camp!”

Michael looks like he has half (or maybe a full) mind to shove Leo over. “There is no ‘back at camp.’ There’s no way off this island. Even if you _could_ build a boat -”

“- Which I’m gonna,” Leo says, and stares at the wind-up toy, still trying to walk around the tree. “Really, I am! I just -”

“You just _what_?”

 _Don’t have enough metal_ , he wants to say. _Also, I think the rest of the people aboard the ship I dreamed up as a kid and built for this prophecy don’t actually care about me, and are probably better off without me, ‘cause it’s not like I’m going to do much good, right?_

“I don’t have enough metal,” is what he does end up saying.

“Whoopdi-fucking-doo.”

“You realize that if I _could_ get us off this island, you could leave, too, right?”

Michael runs his hands down his face, voice muffled when he speaks. “ _I don’t care._ ”

“Okay,” says Leo, and he gets to his feet. “So, you got any problems with me taking some of these pears, or, like -”

Michael holds his head in his hands, and Leo briefly wonders if he has a headache. He doesn’t ask, though. “Take whatever you want. Just shut up and _stop talking to me_.”

Leo scoops some pears into his arms. “You know where to find me if you do decide you wanna talk, just so y’know.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking annoying!”

“Being annoying,” Leo says, holding several pears in his arms, “is my speciality. Hell, I practically _invented_ being annoying.”

“Yeah,” grumbles Michael, getting to his feet. “ _You did._ ”

Leo watches him storm back towards the cave, disappearing behind the curtains (which slam shut with a rattle, the curtain rod almost falling down.) He shrugs before he heads back down to the beach, cradling fruit in his arms. He thinks he _might_ try cooking these pears.

* * *

He’s actually trying to cook the pears when he feels the shift in the air. He’s got them on sticks, over the fire, and while Leo’s got no idea if this is going to taste good (let alone work)... at least it smells nice. It'd be nice if he had some honey or sugar or something, but at least they'll be warm and sort of crisp, and that's better than hamburgers or hotdogs _again_.

He thinks it’s nothing, at first, just a change in the wind - but then he can smell something else, over the pears cooking and the smoke from the fire. Ozone, or something, he’s never been sure on which word. Leo looks up from the fire he has going, watching the clouds roll in, darkening the horizon. Rain, he thinks, and glances over at his lean-to.

It’ll make do, if it’s only a sprinkle… probably. He’s never used a lean-to under the rain before. Either way, he grabs everything off his work table and shoves it all properly under the lean to, covering it with the tarp. A little sand won’t hurt it too much, though he’s very, very, _very_ careful with the sphere; anything that fucks up the wires would not be good.

Leo watches the clouds move forward. The first few droplets of water hit, and he expects that to just be it, but of course his expectations are wrong, ‘cause this one’s a _doozy_.

The sky goes almost pitch black with how dark it is, the rain crashing down onto the ground. Leo covers his head as he scoots beneath the lean-to, trying not to get too wet.

Covering his head ends up being a bad idea, because the wind hits him with a ridiculous amount of force behind it. Leo throws his hands up in an X-shape, protecting his face from the wind, but the force sends him skidding back an inch or two, landing right on his ass and onto the tarp. The impact makes Leo yelp in surprise, grabbing at the sticks keeping his shelter upright to try and steady himself.

This is apparently a horrible idea. The top of the lean-to is ripped _right_ off - it goes flying several feet, landing down by the shore/ The water rushes over to meet it, dragging it into the gray ocean beyond.

 _Fuck_.

The trees shake, leaves and branches and trunks bending in the wind, and it’s a struggle to try and get off the ground, but he manages, scrambling to his feet and steadying himself against the pole.

_This isn’t safe._

He grabs the sphere and holds it to his chest.

He heads up the hills, bracing himself. He’s soaking wet, water pooling in the grass, and the rain just keeps pouring down all sharp and hard and surprisingly painful. It’s almost hard to breathe, and it’s _definitely_ hard to see through it.

Leo moves as quickly as he can. The rain surges on, the wind pushing him around like he’s little more than a leaf. He almost falls over twice, and almost loses his grip on the sphere at least five times that, but he manages to make it through the meadow-y garden and towards the cave.

Holy _Hera_ , this could be a category five hurricane for all he knows, it’s _that_ bad.

The curtains are billowing in the wind, rain falling into the entrance of the cave, but he’s there, and Leo drops to his knees the second he gets into it, scrambling forward and dripping water onto the cave floor. He expects Michael to look up from something, start yelling at him for getting water in his cave, but -

 _Michael’s not there_.


End file.
